Credit: Google Images
This will be a slight break in our camping/paddling
story to handle a bit of current events.
We just came home from having to have a cat put down. If there is any indication of anger in this
post, I’ll confess up front that I’m filled with anger and rage. I’m pissed.
When Jean did her wildlife rehab work, not every story
had a happy ending. In fact, most didn’t,
since many times by the time we got them, the animals had suffered for
prolonged periods from pain, stress, starvation, debilitating to lethal
physical injury, dehydration, or any combination of the above. One owl hung upside-down in an ice storm, and
was literally frozen to the barbed wire fence it got tangled in causing a wing
injury. It hung there for two days
before a farmer, assuming it was already dead, went to investigate. In spite of its poor start, this turned out
to be one of Jean’s greatest success stories.
Part of her success also belonged to our local vet, who helped at his
own expense. But what happens if no
effort or expense can produce a positive outcome? Such was the case with this kitten. The reality that nothing more could be done
finally made it obvious that a gentle, humane death was needed to avoid further
and increasing suffering. So, we took
the kitten to the vet to have her put down by lethal injection.
I watched the cat as it quietly and comfortably went
to sleep. The only thing it would know
of its demise was a small injection under the skin that it would barely
feel. It would slowly drop off into a
relaxed sleep. Not unlike anyone
undergoing surgery, it would not know or feel what followed. It was only after it was incapable of knowing
anything about what was happening, while it was asleep, that the fatal
injection that would stop its heart was administered.
What pissed me off was not that this was needed for
the cat, and that the cat was entitled to a humane and quiet end to its
suffering, but that humans are denied the same peaceful and dignified end. The policy of euthanasia, or right to die,
has become known as ‘death with dignity’ in political circles. The move to get this personal right legalized
has been fiercely fought by conservative Republicans and evangelical Christians
on the premise of sanctity of life. This
is the most distorted and hypocritical position possible. The politicians, especially, deny pre-natal
care to the mother and fetus. Once the
child is born, they deny funding for most health care, food for the starving,
child care, education, housing and more.
The sanctity of life extends only while the infant is in the womb. Before or after, for the rest of its life, it
is on its own. But what if it is
incurably sick or infirm? There is no
provision for ending its suffering except to put it into a coma and keep it
there.
If you want death with dignity, you have to qualify
for it, and in many states where the Republicans and evangelicals hold sway,
you also have to fight for it through the courts for months, or maybe years. To join those who qualify for a humane and
dignified death you have to be a mass murderer, serial sociopath of some other
type, perhaps someone like Jeffrey Dahmer, who kidnapped and sexually attacked
neighborhood young people, then murdered them, cut them up, cooked and ate them
for dinner. Such people, who have caused
no end of suffering to their victims, their families, and society at large, are
granted the most gentle and humane death granted by the state: lethal
injection, the same method used on the kitten.
A neighbor of ours did not qualify for death with
dignity. He was a responsible worker,
husband, father, and not a mass murderer, so he did not qualify for humane
consideration. His only option was to be
starved to death. Liquid was
administered to prevent dehydration, but no food or nutrition was
permitted. He lay like that for over
three weeks as his body got weaker and weaker, and then his organs slowly
failed one by one as they died individually from lack of sustenance until
finally his heart joined the list.
Meanwhile, the exorbitant hospital bills sapped the ability of his
survivors to provide for their own existence as they sat and daily watched him
weaken and fade away as he starved to death.
We have been shown that the brain continues to function through
unconsciousness, coma, and even after death for a while, so while the ‘patient’
may not be exhibiting signs of his or her pain and suffering, they are
nevertheless experiencing it themselves.
A mass murderer is treated with humane care, while a responsible husband
and father is starved to death while his family watches. There is no sanctity there, and I refuse to
believe any God would wish to cause such suffering. Such a God could be no God at all unless his aim
was to sanctify pain and suffering. We
need to stop rewarding the guilty and persecuting the innocent.
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