The following post was published on Medium on February 3, 2020. I will be following it up here (where I will do all of my animal advocacy writing from now on) with a different (sort of) perspective on euthanasia.
I hate the term euthanasia. Loaded with heavy, ugly baggage, it conjures up for me images of kill shelters that destroy animals indiscriminately and pet parents who send their dogs or cats off to the vet to be killed because they were too needy or too expensive or they just didn’t want them anymore. Yes, killed. Please don’t misunderstand. I believe there comes a time when sometimes it is the only thing we can do to relieve an animal companion’s suffering. But I also believe we often overstep that “right” — often as a means of self-preservation, in the guise of “what’s best for her.” And, in fact, there is just no way to get around that we are killing our beloved companions; they are not just dying. We are taking life from them.
When we talk about death, we often do it in terms that sanitize the process. A person has “passed on” or “gone to Heaven” or “bought the farm” or “transitioned.” Although we may believe what the terms we use imply — I prefer the latter term as, in death, we are transitioning out of this life and into an unknown — we still can’t seem to get our heads around the idea that at the end of this life, we will be no more. Regardless of our beliefs, there can be no argument that we are gone from the world as we know it. We won’t go out with friends anymore, cook dinner, watch television, or have long intimate conversations (and more) with our lovers. Despite what many think, we don’t know where we will go or be or if, maybe, we just disappear into the nothingness.
Nobody wants to just disappear, to no longer be a part of the world. You and I don’t want to be thrust into a dark and empty (why must it always be dark and empty? Why not a beautiful forest with tall and protective trees and lots of chatty birds?) place, alone and without the people and animals we love so we, as humans, create these places where we will live on, in one form or another.
We do the same thing for our animal companions. The difference is that we are making a decision to end their lives based on presumed knowledge. We actually don’t know for a certainty, that they want to die. What we do know is that we don’t want to see them suffer. Many times, we don’t truly make the decision for them, but rather for how we are feeling about their illness or injury. We “don’t want to see them suffer” is a common phrase I hear which says volumes about how we make these end-of-life decisions. We don’t like to sit with their suffering, or what we perceive to be their suffering. And, in this culture, suffering is to be avoided at all cost.
I heard someone say that euthanasia is a “beautiful” process. I’ve been in that position where I’ve had to make a decision about a pet, sat with her while the vet injected the drug that would (literally) per her to sleep before she died, watch my family slip away. It wasn’t beautiful. It was heart-wrenching. She was no more. And I didn’t actually know if I had eliminated her suffering or made it worse. But in the end, it was apparent that I’d been complicit in her killing.
I think natural death is a beautiful process. Slipping away, dissolving into the surrounding energy, as we are meant to do. I’m aware that we all have different views of what happens at/after death; it is that knowledge that gives me pause when considering euthanasia. What if, by killing a pet, we are plunging them into a deeper and darker suffering? Does the suffering they experience while alive serve a purpose? Am I truly doing it for them or to alleviate the pain and anxiety I feel, watching them decline?
There is no one answer that serves everyone. As humans, we will follow our beliefs no matter where they take us. But I would hope that, as guardians of those who are family, we would use the opportunity when the time comes to think seriously and critically about why we are making the decision we are.
And I would hope that, regardless of those personal beliefs, we can respect those of others and help them through the grief process without judgment.
Suffering For Us 