Business Week published a report this week When To Let Go: Do Pets Gain from Heroic Measures? "Rather than opting for euthanasia, once seen as the most humane way to put pets out of their misery, more owners are choosing painkillers, chemotherapy, feeding tubes [and] extensive surgery." The article quotes Art Caplan who argues that pets shouldn't be subjected to extraordinary measures that give owners a few extra months of companionship:What I worry about is the ability of vets to guilt people into spending a lot of money for marginal benefits . . . . Grandma can be self-reflective and enjoy a birthday. A cat just suffers.Even the president of the American Veterinary Medical Assn. argues that "If an animal is suffering, if it ceases to take joy in being a dog or cat (or even a hamster or rabbit), it may be time to let it go." A senior executive at PETA similarly argues that "A lot of good people are now putting pets through procedures that just subject the animal to more pain."
Perhaps the lesson is that to the extent that people are more like pets, we should treat them the same. That is, if Grandma (like Fluffy) is unconscious and cannot be self-reflective and enjoy a birthday, then she too should not be subject to such measures.
(Hat tip: Frank Pasquale at concurringopinions)
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