Hi. Can you send this to all your lists? Thanks.
To all folks from NJ: There is a bill pending in the NJ legislature to
amend the anti-cruelty statute. Some of it is good, but there are
problems with a bunch of sections, and various animal groups have been
working on most of the problems. However, in reading it (I am a lawyer),
I discovered a section that is very problematic for people who have
animals with disabilities and other long-term problems. It makes it a
criminal offense to refuse to euthanize an animal who is beyond recovery
from an illness or disability (keep in mind that you can be beyond
recovery from a disability, such as a leg problem, without it
threatening life) if a licensed vet says the animal is in significant
pain or suffering. The reason this is such a problem is, as you know,
vets vary widely as to what they think is beyond recovery and what they
think is suffering. As someone who has cared for a lot of special needs
animals, including cats with FeLV, I have personally experienced-- and
have heard many such stories of-- a bad vet saying that an animal is
beyond hope and is suffering and needs to be put down, only to find a
better vet or a specialist who is willing and able to treat the animal.
If the pending bill is passed without a revision to the way this section
is written, it will put a lot more power into the hands of vets who do
not believe in caring for special needs animals when they pressure
people to euthanize. I wrote the sponsor and co-sponsors of the bill
with suggestions for revision. The main sponsor is currently revising
the bill, so it is a good time to contact your state assemblyman if you
live in NJ and ask him or her to talk to the sponsor (Assemblyman Van
Drew). You can call or write. You can find your NJ state assemblyman
at http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/SelectMun.asp.
Here is the letter that I sent:
I am a NJ resident and an attorney *[You should put in here that you are
a constituent if you are writing your own assembly person].* I read
recently that Assemblyman Van drew, the primary sponsor of A2649, is
currently revising that bill. I write to call your attention to a
revision that I think is necessary to a provision that will affect a lot
of your constituents.
Section 7(6) makes it a second level offense for a person to
purposefully or knowingly refuse to allow the humane destruction of an
animal who is beyond recovery from an illness or disability when a
licensed veterinarian says that the animal is in significant pain or is
suffering. This section needs to be revised in the following two ways:
1) "adequate pain management" should be added as an alternative option
to "humane destruction," so that people who are opposed to euthanasia on
religious grounds can comply with the law by appropriately diminishing
the animal's pain until they pass on their own, as would be done with a
human; the provision can require that appropriate pain management be
provided with the guidance of a veterinarian.
2) the provision should be amended to make clear that an owner can seek
a second opinion from another veterinarian as to whether the animal is
indeed beyond recovery and whether or not the animal is suffering.
If this provision is not amended in these two ways, far too much power
is given to individual veterinarians to determine whether a person is
acting inhumanely, and to thereby require destruction of a loved family
pet when it may not be necessary. Vets sometimes disagree as to whether
an animal is treatable or not, the same way that human doctors do.
Specialists are often able to better diagnose and treat animals with
serious conditions than are local vets. The way that the provision is
currently written, an owner could be criminally charged for not allowing
a vet to euthanize an animal because she wants a second option or to
take the animal to a specialist for more tests. This is obviously not
your intention, but it is the way that it reads.
I have particular concerns about this issue because I adopted cats who
have the feline leukemia virus, also known as FeLV. Many vets consider
a cat carrying the virus to be terminally ill, even though it is simply
an immune compromising virus like HIV and cats can often live for years
with it. Most local vets do not know much about treating cats with this
disease, especially if they graduated from vet school a long time ago.
I can not count the number of stories I have heard of people taking
FeLV+ cats who were sick to a vet and the vet saying euthanasia was
necessary, and the person refusing and taking the cat to a more
knowledgeable vet who was able to treat the symptoms and help the cat
recover from whatever secondary illness the cat had contracted due to
being immune-compromised. You do not want a bill that allows an
individual veterinarian to make the determination that an animal needs
to be euthanized, and criminalizes a pet owner's disagreement and
decision to look for a second opinion.
It is also problematic to require euthanasia without the option of pain
management as an alternative when an animal is terminally ill. For
humans, we provide pain management, not euthanasia. For many people,
their pets are family members and they believe that they should be
treated in the same way. For others, religious convictions preclude
euthanasia (this is generally true for Buddhists, for example). It is
nonsensical to require death rather than pain management if pain can
actually be managed. If a veterinarian can mandate euthanasia rather
than pain management and have his decision carry the weight of criminal
penalties for disagreement, the result will be that people of certain
religions simply will not bring their animals to vets when they fear
that the end is near, and will attempt to give the animals pain
relievers at home. Since lay people can not appropriately medicate
animals, and many human pain relievers are disastrous for animals, this
is a situation that will increase rather than decrease suffering for
some animals. An easy solution is to criminalize refusal to euthanize
only if the person also refuses to adequately manage the pain through
medication, acupuncture, or other methods approved by a veterinarian
(and to allow for second opinions).
A fix for these problems with the current wording would be to exempt
from criminal penalties an owner who immediately seeks the opinion of an
alternate licensed vet and provides vet-approved pain management to the
animal. This would allow prosecution of a person who simply does not
care enough to help a dying animal who is in pain, but would not allow
prosecution or intimidation of an owner who simply disagrees with her
local vet or the emergency vet on duty and wants a second opinion before
ending his or her animal's life, or wishes for religious reasons to
engage in palliative care rather than euthanasia.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Michelle Lerner
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