Mercy Killing

[Guest guest]

No, No, No! I don't mean conference members! What were you thinking!?

 

 

 

Dear Prabhus,

 

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

 

This question might be relevant to this conference as this kind of problem

might arise in a farm situation more often than otherwise. (Not that Varnarama

means "farm", but anyway...). Is mercy killing ever appropriate? There seems a

wide range of scenarios could be put forth, from Dr. Jack'ing someone because

they're terminally ugly, to putting a parakeet "out of it's misery" 'cause a

cat crunched it.

 

No, really, a parakeet. I got a call once from someone who wanted to do the

right thing. My initial thought was, well no, let'um suffer. We don't want to

mess with their karma. But on the other hand, we've been messin' with their

karma their whole lives! The things we do with our dogs..., and our ducks

(sorry Stita). Are we their karma? Or are we interfering? When do we start

interfering?

 

Seriously, it might be a narrow context like a parakeet two steps from her

doom and you're just keeping things moving. Or in the newspaper recently a

wild bear was hit by a car, had both rear legs and it's back broken. Some cop

shot it. What should be done? Let it lay and suffer for a few days 'til it

dies or starves? Fix it up and let it lay paralyzed for the rest of it's life

in a cage?

 

Or to broaden it, say John Wayne killed a horse with broken leg because it's

"the Law of the West". I guess they would argue that the horse's quality of

life was reduced below some pre-defined level, so that Johnny-on-the-spot

could say shoot or no shoot? The Law of the West may have been predicated on

the cowboy's ease. It's easier to kill it and buy another. However, what do we

do when a favorite, elderly cow gets a nasty, compound fracture from a

groundhog hole? Besides get a dog to get rid of the ground hogs? Or to keep

away from cow questions, how about some luckless sheep with the same problems?

 

Back to Jack; some dearly beloved is suffering agonizing (as in

A-G-O-N-I-Z-I-N-G), long enduring (as in 24hrs X 7 days) pain from cancer or

whatever. It's completely hopeless, but their going to hang around for another

couple of months. They are begging to die (as in B...).

 

What to do? It the haze of sentimentality, how to see the appropriate course

of action and then the re-action for the souls involved, from Jack himself to

Tweetie?

 

By the way no big, perilous decision is pending; just kinda wondering.

 

YS Jiva Goswami