Vital Regulations

In response to Andrew's post 'Humanely Killing?' (5/5/2013):

In his post, Andrew mentions that one of the few cases in which killing an animal might be justified is if that animal is in chronic pain.  This does not seem unreasonable; after all, many countries are now considering the morality of allowing voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide for humans in similar situations.  Since animals cannot give their consent to euthanasia, in some cases it might be best to have their human guardians consent on their behalf.  Currently, vet's offices euthanise many sick animals every year, ending their suffering in a painless manner akin to falling asleep.

Yet there is a problem with this system as it is currently implemented.  There are few to no regulations on 'pet' euthanasia.  True, many guardians only bring in their companion animals for this purpose when the animals are clearly in severe pain, and their suffering is not due to a temporary condition, but others may ask for their companion animal to be euthanised for petty or otherwise immoral reasons.  Some of the most common are: the guardian is moving to an apartment which will not allow companion animals, the companion animal turned out to be more difficult to care for than the guardian supposed, or someone in the guardian's family (perhaps a new spouse) dislikes or is allergic to the companion animal.  These are clearly not good reasons to end the life of a healthy animal!  And yet, the decision to euthanise is still left up to subjective human judgement.  Veterinarians do have the power to refuse to euthanise an animal, but some veterinarians do not care what they do as long as they are paid for it, and others find themselves in situations where they risk losing their jobs if they refuse to euthanise.

I think that there should be extremely strict laws on companion animal euthanasia - if anything, I think that these laws should be stricter than on voluntary human euthanasia or assisted suicide, since the companion animals themselves cannot consent.  I think that these laws should prevent veterinarians from euthanising healthy animals, protect those who refuse to euthanise, and probably also provide measures to remove companion animals from guardians who clearly have little or no concern for their welfare and place them in homes with new, caring guardians.