Wednesday, March 23, 2005

For the Love of Cats

I had to have my cat put to sleep last night. It had been coming for a couple of weeks - she was 14-15 years old, and had cancer, and she started having trouble walking. When she stopped eating two days ago, it seemed like it was time.

But this isn't a sad-pet-mourning blog, I have a point: We live in a world where virtually no one would dispute that it is an act of kindness to end my cat's life quickly and painlessly with an anesthetic injection, but the only thing we can do for a human being, who would not have wanted to be prolonged (according to the 20 or so judges who've ruled on it) in the condition she's in, is stop feeding her until she dehydrates/starves. And people with no connection to her whatsoever do everything in their power (and, occasionally, beyond their power, IMO) to prevent even that.

If only there were some way to convict Terri Schiavo of murder...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

But, you see, you don't understand - taking the life of an animal is not the same as taking the life of a human. We eat all kinds of animals so the lives of animals have no inherent value. But HUMAN LIFE, no matter the actual capacity to experience it or interact with it, is sacred - now and for always. If we started looking at human life from a utility POV... why, people might start killing themselves when they felt like it... or people might figure out a way to grow vats of human organs or eyes or tissues and use them for replacement parts... No. No. No... it's a dangerous road when you start to kill people because somenoe decides it's time for them to go. You do it once - it's like drugs - to want to do it again. And sooner or later, you're killing everybody for any little excuse... snuffing kids at daycare because they cry to much... looking for back alley thrills by killing vegitative senior citizens that would have simply croaked a long, long time ago without the blessed machines to keep 'em alive... damaged, broken, or busted, I'll keep my body the way God made it - with a genetic condition that predesposes my liver to cancer and a heart that will collapse at age 17 and kept alive by machinese because I got in a car acident when I was 12 - because that's a part of God's plan... duh!