After reading the novel ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’ (by Horace McCoy, which was made into a movie in 1969) in the film version of the short story ‘Mr. Harrigan’s Phone’ (by Stephen King), Craig asks Mr. Harrigan, ‘If horses in pain can be put of their misery, why can’t humans be afforded the same gift?’ Harrigan ‘replies’ with more of an exclamation — ‘The gift of death, to nevermore feel pain or fret or worry.’ Is the answer, and even question sensible? There are three key issues to note…
First, just because there horses ‘can’ be shot because they are in pain (e.g. due to broken feet) does not mean they should be killed. Why are horses’ lives deemed meaningfully valuable only if they can race for humans, pull carriages with humans and give rides to humans? All these are entirely from their human slave drivers’ perspectives, for their selfish exploitation only. Why are faithful horses not offered safe retirement in stables with food and medicine, after a lifetime of slogging?
Second, just because humans imagine shot fallen horses are ‘put of their misery’ does not mean this is so. Why are horses not possibly with fear and anger when about to be killed, with this existential indignation spilling over to their next lives? With terrible executions, how are they not possibly reborn in equally or more miserable states? Why are loyal horses not ‘rewarded’ time to live out their normal lifespans in peace, even if sick and deemed ‘unprofitable’?
Third, just because euthanasia is imagined as a gift, even if welcomed by the one to be killed, it might turn out to be a horrible surprise ‘gift’, nothing pleasant at all. ‘Nevermore feel pain or fret or worry’? Furthermore actually. There will be mental confusion and anguish, for the body can be killed but the mind never. One will perhaps be dying in an extremely negative state of mind, with perhaps the greatest pain ever — of being killed. Karmically, it is difficult to have a good rebirth if there is no good death. May none romanticise euthanasia then.
Thus, so much for the euphemism of ‘putting to sleep’, since there is no more waking to this life, while possibly ‘waking’ to a worse one when reborn. So much for cognitive dissonance that powers speciesism too. Just as we do not put human loved ones to ‘sleep’, why should we put any other sentient being to ‘sleep’? Why not offer palliative care and spiritual guidance for how to have the swiftest and best rebirth, in Pure Land, where liberation from the cycle of birth and death is assured?
