What My Cat’s Death Taught Me About The Way We Die
My cat Misty’s death convinced me that euthanasia is not the moral crime that its been made out to be
One year ago today, my cat Misty died. I wrote about her death here, and how I tried to learn some lessons and make the best of that sorrowful time.
Misty had been afflicted with an aggressive cancer in her head, one that grew so quickly that within a couple of weeks after we brought her to the specialist vet, it was literally pushing her right eye out.
Although we tried to rush the CT Scans and biopsies, paying hundreds of dollars to cut the diagnostic queues, we were not in time to save her.
We were in Singapore and the lab that Misty’s biopsy sample had to be sent to was in Maine, in the USA. (Until today, I wonder how it is that such a wealthy and fairly advanced country as mine doesn’t have a lab that can read a cat biopsy.)
Our veterinary surgeon told us that the chances of a successful operation were vanishingly slim and even if successful, Misty would lose not just her right eye, but almost a third of her face.
Even if she survived. This was because to excise the cancer, part of her brain case would have to be removed and she would lose part of her ear-nose-throat functions.
Her recovery would be painful and her quality of life would be poor. Worse still, even then, the cancer could recur.
I asked the vet whether there was any chance of Misty surviving on her own, and the answer was no. The vets warned us there was also a chance that the cancer could push her eyeball out before she died, and even then, she might not die immediately.
Misty was already in pain, having been on morphine for a couple of weeks. But the day before we went into the vet for the last time, she had stopped eating and just huddled in her safe corner.
The sight of our dear cat in this state crushed us, and we were distraught with helplessness.
Every resource I consulted gave the same medical and moral advice, and faced with the inevitable, we felt it must be time to let her go.
That fateful afternoon, the vet gave Misty a strong sedative and as she lay purring in our arms, the vet administered the lethal injection.
And just like that, Misty was gone from our lives.
We were bereft with grief, adrift in a state of desolation. Yet, while I felt an overpowering guilt at not having been able to save our cat, I knew it had been the right thing to do.
We had the power to end her suffering by giving her a painless and dignified exit from this world where she was loved, but where she could look forward to nothing more except further pain and suffering.
To have left her to die ‘naturally’, or even to bring her home for another 24 hours just so that we could cling on to her while she was in great pain, would have been the height of cruelty.
A Debate about Euthanasia
Because I was raised as a Christian, I had assumed that suicide, which I conflated with the various types of euthanasia, was morally untenable as an end of life option.
I simplistically thought that taking one’s own life, not to mention making the decision to take someone else’s, was the blackest of sins, akin to murder even.
Why was it then that everyone around me, including vets, ethical columnists, and friends, was one hundred percent sure that I had made the right decision to quietly end Misty’s life?
In the year since Misty’s death, I have had time to think about how we had to euthanise her and I now question why something seen to be entirely humane and indeed, morally correct to administer to sick and terminally suffering animals, should be forbidden for people?
The anniversary of Misty’s death coincided with a newspaper opinion piece about whether Singapore, with its aging population, should consider legalizing some aspects of euthanasia, so that people too, in specific situations of painful and terminal illness, might be given the option to end their own lives with grace.
Reading between the lines of her article, I glean that for some, their outright rejection of euthanasia arises from the possibly religious or moral conception that somehow, human life is inherently so precious that no circumstances can warrant a person taking his own life or the life of another.
One hospice director quoted in the the Singapore article proclaimed rather grandly:
”The hand that offers help, hope and relief cannot abandon those who need it most, or worse still, offer the hand of death.”
I’m sure that he meant well. But having gone through the ordeal of deciding to end our cat Misty’s life, I found his words smug and naive, indeed offensive.
For what if, for a sick person, there is no hope of survival? That prolonging life would not bring relief but even more dire suffering, for no discernibly good outcome?
In the hypothetical case of a person afflicted with a similar cancer as Misty’s, I wonder if this hospice director would rather wait for the sick person’s eyeball to be pushed out of his skull by the rapidly metastasizing cancer?
And if the person was still alive after that, to treat and dress the empty eye socket but let the cancer continue to press into that person’s braincase or nasal cavities, until he or she suffocated to death or went mad?
I just cannot accept that ruling out euthanasia, and instead allowing something so needlessly cruel, could be considered ethically or morally correct.
There is a difference between suicide and euthanasia
Reading about why so many people seem against another person opting for euthanasia, it seems to me that much of the angst appears to be because they think that it is that it is the same as suicide.
But I think most would agree there is a difference between a shooter who already killed ten people shooting himself dead to avoid capture, and a person terminally ill with excruciatingly painful and incurable cancer who begs to be allowed to end his own life.
One is suicide, an act of cowardice and escape from justice, and the other is an appeal to be released from pain in the face of a hopeless future.
I think that in situations like the latter, the humane and ethically correct thing to do is to not stand in the way of someone who wants to end his life with grace and dignity, rather than leave him to die agonizingly and helplessly as he goes howling in pain into the forever night.
Whether this person who self-euthanises is committing a sin or not, I would leave between himself and God.
Last Words
Finally, I have heard objections that I should not be comparing what is correct and ethical for animals with standards for people. Most such arguments center upon how human life is on a higher plane than animals and somehow more precious and sacrosanct, or that only God has the right to ‘take life’.
This is convenient for moral posturing, but I think only as long as one is never forced to defend it in the face of tragedy.
Let us then have another thought exercise:
Imagine if your wife or child suffers a car accident where the car has burst into flames and came out of the burning wreck with terrible 2nd and 3rd degree burns over 80 percent of the body, including a burnt away face.
I think anyone who has suffered a burn in the kitchen will know that it is the most excruciating pain.
Now, imagine the accident has occurred in a remote area with no medical help and no painkillers. And that there is no hope of rescue.
In the face of certain death, if they beg for release, would you allow your loved one to linger on for days in agony and distress without morphine or indeed any other form of relief?
Would you tell them that only God can take away their pain and then do nothing because it is not your place to relieve their suffering by ending it, even though it is within your power?
I know what I would do.
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