Monday, 11 June 2018

PUTTING HUMANS TO SLEEP (Letter to Sunday-Star Times, June 11)



Two lions at Auckland zoo are “put to sleep” and Alison Mau thinks that might be nice for humans too. Because, she says, zoo staff chose “their time of death with such care and dignity”.
 
Unfortunately human nature, as opposed to animal, is not always so caring. Animals never kill their own species except in self defence, but humans do it all the time for all sorts of reasons. Like greed, for instance, or laziness.
 
Humans are “a superior species” because unlike animals we have a soul, a conscience. Not just an individual conscience that makes choices for oneself, but a collective conscience which must care for the vulnerable disabled and elderly, putting their need for dying with care and dignity ahead of our own fear of suffering.

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