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The walks have been getting shorter for some time.
Once an enthusiastic bundle of energy, my 10-year-old companion now is more measured, his breathing just that little bit heavier, his gait slower.
Vet appointments have grown longer, more frequent, with matter-of-fact updates about the unusual malignancy, the challenges in aiming for a cure, the need to “consider quality of life.”
There’s a quiet sadness, an ache that endures even when wrapped in the studied formality of clinical language.
As a doctor, my instinct has been to look for ways to minimise risks, alleviate suffering and extend life. And yet I now calmly discuss how to help a beloved pet die with dignity, when the time comes.
As I reflect on this, I am only too aware of a painful kindness, born of love, that underlies these discussions.
We do it for our pets without hesitation, and yet why is it that when we speak of assisted dying for people, we become uncertain, divided, even silent?
This is often invoked in discussions around assisted dying. “Why should human beings be denied the same agency we readily grant a suffering animal?”
Intuitive as it is, something about the analogy makes me pause.
It may be because assisted dying has been very much in the news recently.
The quote about assisted dying in human beings being “abandonment dressed up as mercy” is one that plays constantly in my mind, particularly when it applies to people with mental disorders or disability.
This is why, while raising this topic is uneasy, I feel the need to do it.
“Euthanasia in Animals and Humans: Distinctions to Consider,” is a compelling paper on this topic that explores the ethically intricate terrain and highlights key points dispassionately:
1. Human life is above all other forms in the hierarchy of value.
2. Human sentience and a layered consciousness creates a difference that matters morally.
3. Caring for a pet is a humane endeavour driven by guardianship, not mutual agreement.
4. Pets do not express a will to live or die. We do that for them.
5. Unlike animals, humans have the capacity to understand both the healing and the harming power of medicine.
6. There is no equivalent to human suicide in the animal world.
7. Individuals often worry about them being a burden, of being seen as selfish for wanting to stay alive. Animals do not.
My brain can of course, accept these distinctions on life value, sentience and agency, but the heart struggles.
While I know what the textbooks say, when I look into those liquid brown eyes, I’m never quite sure.
The only consolation is that there are still good days, too. Those many, bright mornings when there’s still a spring in his step.
Hope endures.