Pain or death: euthanasia again

Usually, the police raids crack houses and gang hideouts in Toronto. Last Thursday, November 26, 2009, officers descended on the Toronto Humane Society, a 118-year-old charity sheltering abandoned cats and dogs. Some of the most noted charges were cruelty to animals, which is a criminal offence in Canada. Apparently, the Society kept very sick animals alive instead of putting them to death. Assuming that’s what happened and that both managers and vets are responsible, this case may very well come down to whether keeping sick animals alive out of opposition to euthanasia is a crime in this country.

Four sections of the Criminal Code of Canada cover the crime of cruelty to animals. There are four possible offences. Three of them, injuring animals in transit or abandoning them, keeping a cockpit, and breaching a prohibition order, are not relevant to this case. The offence that the Society’s managers allegedly committed is causing unnecessary suffering to animals. “Every one commits an offence who … wilfully causes or, being the owner, wilfully permits to be caused unnecessary pain, suffering or injury to an animal or a bird…” (s. 445.1(1)(a) of the Criminal Code).

If the Society’s managers can prove that the pain their policy caused to the animals was necessary, they will be acquitted. Tim Trow is the Society’s President who faces charges of cruelty to animals. According to the Toronto Star, he is “a retired lawyer known for his opposition to euthanasia.” Assuming there is no other relevant information, he isn’t a sadist. He kept animals suffering from incurable diseases alive because he believed it was wrong to kill them. If he can prove that choosing pain over death is necessary, he will be acquitted.

Only those causing “unnecessary” pain are guilty of the crime. The courts have said that “unnecessary” in this context means something that can be avoided. And you must handle the animal for a legitimate purpose in the first place. For example, it is legitimate to euthanize your terminally sick dog, but you can’t cut its throat to kill it because painless alternatives are available. But what about keeping a terminally sick dog alive? Assuming it’s a legitimate purpose and assuming they don’t prescribe morphine for dogs, there is indeed no alternative to pain. So Tim Trow’s defence will come down to whether keeping a terminally sick animal alive is a legitimate purpose.

And that’s a philosophical question, isn’t it?

AdviceScene

3 Comments on "Pain or death: euthanasia again"

  1. While it’s premature to jump to conclusions in either direction, my preliminary view based on the information publically available is that the OSPCA is pushing a prosecution based on an ethical / philosophical difference rather than on a genuine criminal act.

    The question of when, or even whether, to euthanize a sick animal is one over which reasonable people can differ. Making a choice with which the OSPCA disagrees, is not in and of itself a criminal act.

    The Code requires deliberate wilful harming of the animals to sustain a conviction and that appears to be very doubtful in the circumstances of this case.

  2. It sure was handy for Trow that his convictions dovetailed perfectly with getting to publish and promote, endlessly, THS’ extraordinarily low euthanasia stats.

    So animals can suffer horribly for weeks or months, but hey, the pamphlets begging for donations sure have a great Fig. 1!

  3. The blog author misunderstands the case against the THS management. The THS management is accused of chronically understaffing their facility; not providing proper veterinary care; negligent assignment of incompetent staff without training nor supervision; failing to feed, water, exercise and provide proper sanitation; failure to alleviate suffering with pain medications; failing to euthanize chronically ill animals with no chance of recovery or being adopted. By doing so any reasonable person could not have failed to forsee the neglect and cruelty towards animals.
    As an example, take the kitten nurseries. In late 2008 the THS instructed the kitten feeder co-ordinator to turn down volunteers; fired him; the kitten-feeder trainer was fired; volunteers and staff were fired; there was either a shortage or lack of kitten food and lack of vets and supplies; sick animals were not quarantined from healthy animals. The result, which anyone would have anticipated, the least of whom are the management of a Humane Society, is that kittens died from starvation, dehydration, rampant disease. In other words, there was no one to clean them, no one to feed them, no one to vet them, no food, no supplies for feeding and cleaning.
    The THS has staged the terms of the debate as an insoluble philosophical debate when it is a simple matter of animal neglect. The statistics they put forward are unaudited, their extraoridarily low “euthanasia rate” is an unrecognized metric. I believe what will come out in the criminal case is that the THS stats are not only heavily manipulated, but a case of criminal fraud, that they solicited money based on stats that are made up. The stats I have, briefly, show that the euthanasia numbers are correct, but that the admission numbers are closer to 3,000 cats and dogs per year, not 10,000.

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