Of horses and men

[scorched_mirth]

This weekend, Barbaro was put to sleep. This is a wonderful horse which broke a leg last year, and spent eight months trying to recover. Eventually, the recovery failed, and he was euthanized. You can read the story on ESPNTHe thing that bothers me, however, is the absolute double standard that many people have when they view this story against a

Comments

[singingnettle]

Considering that my mother put me in charge of conveying her wishes not to be continued on life support...oh yeah, I feel the same way. And given that human euthanasia issues keep getting defeated but just don't completely lie down and die, so to speak, I believe many more people than you think are having trouble with the ethics of this issue as well.

[ihgreenman]

What ethics?

Singingnettle, I know that you agree with me, so this is mostly to scorched_mirth and anybody else reading.

I think the only ethics concerned here is why is it wrong to let someone go if there is no reason for them to stay? I'm not talking about depression -- I'm talking about cancer, major organ failure, things like that.

In my opinion, life is not a right. It is a gift. When that gift becomes a burden instead of a gift, why not let that gift go?

I think that the Hippocratic Oath -- "Physician, first do no harm" -- does *not* mean to hang on to life no matter what. An important level of interpretation that is too often ignored: failure to see that "harm" can refer to mental well-being as well as the physical. When mental well being gets to the point when it is in direct opposition to the physical...

[singingnettle]

I agree. But for many people there are arguments on both sides of what becomes a very personal, agonizing question. Sometimes the decision to let someone go directly conflicts with people's religious beliefs, not to mention (depending on what form death takes) our legal system. And if the person whose life is in question is not in a state to express their wishes, that is another layer of agony, indecision, and conflict.

Unfortunately, we have experienced this situation too many times in my family, although it is only once that a child's desire to keep their parent alive at all costs contravened that person's own wish to be taken off life support. And that was terrible.

[keikaimalu]

So -- are you saying horses with broken legs shouldn't be euthanized, or human beings in pain should be offered the option?

I personally think it's more complex than what you've said. A broken leg is a death sentence to a horse largely because horses don't typically come back from broken legs. They rely too much on their legs and can't function without one. To me it's noteworthy that people spent 8 months trying to bring the horse back from that, instead of sending him to the horse farm in the sky immediately.

And with people -- I struggle with this one, but there are issues with readily available human euthanasia, one of which is family pressure. If grandma is getting on, and costing a lot of money to keep alive, and getting pressure from her kids to shuffle along, can it truly be said her decision was made of her own free will? People can have pressures brought to bear on them that horses can't, and that complicates the ethics of the matter.

[ellameena]

I can't understand if you are are saying that Barbaro shouldn't have been euthanized, or that Grandma should be. In the case of Barbaro, the owners were being very unrealistic in thinking they could bring the horse back from this devastating injury. A human can live without a leg. A horse can't. But he was supposedly so valuable as a stud horse that they tried, and in the process subjected Barbaro to many painful surgeries and eight months in a hospital stall, much of it being supported by a sling, which is no way for a horse to live--and that's not even addressing the pain