This is about the euthanasia of companion animals versus assisted dying of people and that all important slippery slope.
There’s an interesting article online today (The Telegraph) about an excellent veterinarian who loved his work (and still does to a certain extent) who it appears to me became somewhat disillusioned because he was asked to euthanise companion animals that had curable diseases. These pets were essentially healthy but for a disease that could be treated.
Tom Rhind-Tutt
Nonetheless, the owners wanted this veterinarian to euthanise their pets. Under these circumstances this is not euthanasia but killing. The vet’s name is Tom Rhind-Tutt.
He tells us that every time he was asked to euthanise a pet for the wrong reasons, it hurt him emotionally. It appears that each one leaves a mental scar and on one occasion he broke down and burst into tears.
‘I’m a vet, but I can’t face putting down another healthy animal’
He had tried to convince his client not to euthanise a cat (a beautiful smoked tabby) who had hyperthyroidism which is treatable but at a cost of around £40 per month. He had phoned around shelters to see whether they would take the cat and re-home home him. He failed because it was during the Covid pandemic and the shelters were full. He asked colleagues if they could help. No luck.
He says the following:
“In the end, feeling I had exhausted all options, I put the cat to sleep but it caused me to have a breakdown. After the owner left and the death had sunk in, I broke down sobbing. I’m not really someone who cries but I just bawled my eyes out and it made me question whether I had done the right thing in becoming a vet.”
He learned from the experience. He learned to refuse to euthanise a pet on the directions of the client if he felt that was the right decision. Of course, under those circumstances the owner will take the pet somewhere else and another veterinarian will probably euthanise the animal so it is likely that his refusal would not save the life of this animal. And the client-vet relationship is strained. Bad for business.
RELATED: Veterinarian guilty of “disgraceful conduct” for not euthanising a cat on request.
And, sadly, he says that “in recent years, I have noticed perhaps a small increase in the number of owners who just don’t want their pet any more. The lockdown puppy boom has definitely been a factor, plus the cost of living crisis. It is these cases that destroy me because I just can’t face putting down another healthy animal.”
Plus he felt that clients can have unrealistic expectations which made some interactions very difficult. And then there’s the corporatisation of the veterinary business i.e. the buying up of independent veterinarians by big business which has arguably pushed up prices to the point where they can be unacceptable to clients which can have a negative impact on animal health because people are put off going to see their veterinarian.
Because of these factors and the trauma he suffered over the years in euthanising pets that were essentially healthy he decided to get out of full-time veterinary work and now works as a consultant vet in the insurance industry for three days a week and works as a locum veterinarian in Wiltshire for two days a week.
The point, of the story for me is that a veterinarian can develop mental scar tissue over time when being directed to euthanise treatable pets.
Assisted dying
The second point of the story merges quite nicely with a bill currently being considered in the UK Parliament. It is called the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill and it is set to be introduced in the House of Commons on October 16, 2024. It is a private members bill sponsored by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater and aims to allow terminally ill adults with less than 12 months to live the option to end their lives with medical assistance.
There is quite a lot of pressure in the UK to introduce a law which would allow people to legally take advantage of assisted dying (it happens all the time under the radar). This would allow people to end their lives with dignity and at their decision. We are not given the option to decide whether we come into the world or not. We should at least be given the right to decide when we leave it when terminally ill.
Polls consistently show that a majority of British people support legalised assisted dying, particularly for terminally ill patients who are suffering. For example, a 2022 survey by YouGov found that around 70% of the British public supported the idea of assisted dying with incurable illnesses. The support is based on compassion for those in extreme pain and the desire for personal autonomy in end-of-life decisions. As mentioned, you allow terminally a people to decide when to check-out. This must be the correct way to deal with these issues.
But you can see the difference, the stark difference between the assisted dying of companion animals versus the assisted dying of people.
As mentioned by this veterinarian, clients come into his clinic requesting euthanasia of their pet when the animal is treatable. That is how some people think. They don’t, it appears, place a value on the life of the companion animal such that they feel an obligation to preserve life as long as is compassionately possible, to care and commit to excellence in pet caregiving.
Slippery slope
This is the slippery slope which we can envisage in Britain that might occur when the above-mentioned bill becomes an act. There are no safeguards when euthanising pets save for the decision of the vet to refuse it. Of course we can’t ask for an animal’s consent. This leads to abuse. There are ethical questions around whether pets’ lives are undervalued or decisions are influenced by convenience rather than need.
This is the slippery slope with an act which allows people to decide for assisted dying i.e. human euthanasia. You need strong safeguards properly enforced for an assisted dying law to protect vulnerable people and prevent abuse. We would do this for people but we don’t do it for pets. This is a clear indication of how humans value pets despite their often-mentioned status that they are regarded as family members.
Pets are treated as family members just like a child in many homes but clearly also in many homes they are not. In these homes pets can be disposable. They can be abandoned either at a shelter or even beside the road. Or even in a dustbin as was recently reported when five almost newborn kittens were discovered in a large waste bin being collected by waste disposal workers.
Safeguards for pets?
It begs the question as to whether there should be some safeguards to protect pets against unwarranted euthanasia. Whether there should be some protections for companion animals. Whether there should be some sort of framework under which both clients and veterinarians can work to ensure that pets are not killed by veterinarians against their wishes and at the convenience of the owner.
Such safeguards might include some of those that protect people such as clear eligibility criteria limiting access to terminally ill patients with a confirmed prognosis of a short life expectancy. For people of course you would require informed consent ensuring that patients fully understand their decisions without external pressure. And there would have to be screening for depression or other psychological conditions that may impair judgement.
There will also have to be multiple medical professionals providing oversight to assess each case independently and finally there would need to be monitoring and enforcement i.e. continuous oversight to prevent misuse and ensure ethical compliance. In short, there would have to be a very complex and detailed framework under which assisted dying of people took place.
This framework would address the main concern surrounding unassisted dying act. Terminally ill people are vulnerable. Critics argue that the elderly, disabled or mentally ill may feel pressured to opt for assisted dying due to societal or familial pressures especially if they feel like a burden.
And there’s this often mentioned “slippery slope”. Some worry that legalised assisted dying for terminally ill patients may lead to broader eligibility potentially including non-terminal conditions or individuals with psychological suffering.
The slippery slope metaphor is a good one because it appears that some people have slid down that slippery slope already when it comes to companion animals. What happens in the companion animal world is an indicator of what might happen in the human world in terms of assisted dying.
Convenience euthanasia
I’d like to touch again on the subject of ‘convenience euthanasia’. It is a term created by veterinarians which is self-explanatory. It can apply when a pet owner does not wish to fork out the expense of looking after a sick companion animal and decide instead to euthanise the animal.
Or it might happen when a pet is behaving badly notwithstanding the fact that the bad behaviour is probably due to bad human behaviour e.g. because the animal was not properly socialised or he or she lives in an environment which provokes, in the eyes of humans, bad behaviour. All bad companion animal behaviour ultimately has its origins in bad human behaviour.
Apparently, according to Dominic Lawson, writing in The Sunday Times today, “One report by Sainsbury’s Finance found that over half of vets had put down a dog or cat in the previous five years because the owners couldn’t afford to treat them. I suppose the analogy here [with human assisted dying] would be care home fees for an elderly relative, which, even more than the cost of veterinary treatment, have risen to levels that could absorb all a family’s savings.”
The “no” camp
Dominic Lawson also tells me that “more than 80% of doctors in the speciality [the speciality of providing palliative care] are in the “no” camp. Since they are the ones with the greatest experience of dealing with patients confronting terminal illness and death, and have seen the worst of what that can mean, their views deserve particular attention.”
Comment: I agree with that of course because Dominic Lawson is a very smart guy, much smarter than me. However, doctors providing palliative care are probably running businesses in providing private medical care. They will lose this business or a significant part of it, if the above-mentioned act was made law. They probably have a vested financial interest I would suggest.
The Association of Palliative Medicine in Great Britain and Ireland
Dominic Lawson spoke to Dr. Matthew Dore, the honorary secretary of the above-mentioned association. He said: “The animal analogy really irks me. ‘You wouldn’t put a dog through this’ was Kim Leadbeater’s and Esther Rantzen’s argument. But you are not a dog, and they don’t treat you like a dog in any other way.”
Comment: I think he’s wrong! I mention above that many families treat their companion dog and companion cat as a member of the family and treat them as if they are little humans. Anthropomorphising cats and dogs is very commonplace.
Dr. Matthew Dore explained to Dominic Lawson how vulnerable people were when diagnosed with a terminal condition and how that the remainder of their natural life was of no intrinsic value. He made the point that it would be “very hard for doctors, or judges, to determine if a patient’s demand for euthanasia had not been subtly, or even not so subtly, suggested to them.”
This is a good point and it was made apparently years ago to a House of Lords committee involved in investigating the experience of assisted dying in the Netherlands.
United States
And in the US state of Oregon, the jurisdiction which supporters of assisted dying often refer to, the most recent official survey showed that 46% of those who chose assisted dying had mentioned being a burden on family and caregivers. A concern for those who are at the end of their life.
Comment: clearly assisted dying is a very delicate and difficult matter and there are arguments on both sides.
Parkinson’s disease
Also in The Sunday Times today is an article about a podcast (Movers and Shakers) concerning Parkinson’s disease. A disease which apparently is specifically excluded from the bill being debated in UK Parliament mentioned above. The podcast team includes Sir Nicholas Mostyn, a very distinguished British judge, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease about four years ago. He is very upset about the exclusion of Parkinson’s disease sufferers from this proposed law. He considers the existing position to be ridiculous.
He said: “The existing law is ridiculous – they make it a crime to aid and abet something that is not a crime [suicide].”
Of course he is correct. He intends to end his life with a heavy dose of barbiturates but he had hoped that his plan would be unnecessary, superseded by the introduction of this new legislation on assisted dying.
Story of love
This is a copy and paste of a comment from YouTube by @jaysasso4392. It is fine:
A vet told me to put my cat down, he would never walk again he said he would never heal, I left his office with my cat, clearly in pain, unable to walk or eat. I took the x rays home with me. I prayed over my cat, fed him, gave in drink in minute amounts constant and a month later he showed some improvements. It was hard putting him through all this and hard on me as well. But he survived and began to eat on his own and not only did he regain the use of his legs, he ran. I had him another 7 years. Vets have a thing about putting animals down and grated there are cases where it may be needed. But I was not putting down my cat just because he couldn’t walk or use the litter pan. Nor because he would not eat. Did he suffer while he was healing? Yes. But when he got better, he hardly left my side and followed me everywhere as he had done before. I think he had a beautiful life.
