The Pierre Capital Journal falls in with animal rights activists (and Big Ag, and the state vet, and the entire South Dakota Senate...) and says it's about time South Dakota pass Senate Bill 46 and make animal cruelty a felony:
South Dakota is poised to be the last state to pass such a law, if we do it – we’ve rejected such legislation in the past.
Think about that – we are probably one of the states that is most dependent on animals for our livelihood, yet we have had a problem over the years working out legislation that would stiffen the penalties for animal cruelty. Let’s take a lesson here from the rest of the country. This is about ordinary human decency.
We hope again that the members of the state House of Representatives agree with their Senate colleagues and pass Senate Bill 46 [editorial, "Thumbs up to Two Pieces of Good Legislation," Pierre Capital Journal, 2014.02.16].
Animal cruelty legislation isn't some evil plot from outsiders to impose their liberal critter-lovin' worldview on us. Making animal cruelty a felony is an expression of South Dakota values, of decency and basic respect for the creatures that keep South Dakotans happy, healthy, and, in many cases, wealthy.
Larry Pressler: nuff said.
Let's expand that thought. We shoot horses when they break a leg. We euthanize our dogs and cats when they are suffering from cancer or other maladies of old age. But when a human being is suffering with no chance of recovery from their ailment, and or no hope for any type of quality of life, we make them continue to suffer, with maybe some morphine might ease the suffering, (and I wrote maybe, because I recently saw a case of a person in a major nursing home with cancer suffering drastically, but sent to the hospital three times to be given morphine for the pain) and the fourth time finally being put in hospice and then die within a couple of days.) Gosh wonder why our healthcare costs have risen so dramatically.
We make humans suffer because of the connotation on suicide that it somehow breaks God's law, "Thou shall not kill." But the same society that posits that theory, has no problem with the death penalty or with going to war, or with placing sanctions on governments with which our government disagrees, and those sanctions can cause the death of innocent children as it did with a half million children between Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom in Iraq. Dr Kavorkian had it right and so do the States of Washington, Oregon and Montana. The option of assisted suicide is a moral decision that is way past due.
Well, since no one took me up on my challenge to expand this conversation on cruelty, I guess that I must admit that it does not surprise me. I called in three times to Dr On Call on South Dakota Public TV Thursday nights at 7 central asking that the good doctors talk about the issue of assisted suicide. I naturally called on weeks when the doctors were dealing with end of life issues. Not once did they say a word about it nor (as they always promise) address any issues not talked about on air, on their website. Finally on the 4th time that I called (probably 3 1/2 years after the first on this issue) they did speak about it briefly.
Then I went to a healthcare conference and the University Center here in Sioux Falls, that was attended by Doctors, Nurses, hospital administrators, Clergy, Nursing home administrators, and was able to get my question out early in the question and answer session and after a few muffled gasps, a few of them did address the issue.
And, I know that it is an issue that it is an issue that no one wants to talk about, but with a population whose average age is increasing every day, the fact that half of the cost of healthcare of an entire lifetime is being eaten up in the last 6 months of a person's life, the propensity of the healthcare industry to keep us alive at all costs, before you watch a loved one suffer needlessly, often for an extended period of time, you better be ready to talk about it, because in healthcare terms it is the largest elephant in the room.