Monthly Archives: January 2021

NEW YORK, Jan. 12, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --In an effort to prevent euthanasia among New York's most vulnerable pets, global animal philanthropy H/3 Foundation Inc. has partnered with Anjellicle Cats Rescue, a New York non-profit organization dedicated to rescuing, rehabilitating and finding homes for abandoned and homeless cats.

H/3 Foundation and Anjellicle Cats Rescue share a deep conviction that no animal should be ill-treated, and we strive toward a day when awareness, education and compassion have replaced euthanasia as a solution to companion animal overpopulation. H/3 Foundation is excited to work with Anjellicle Cats Rescue and its coalition of volunteers and caregivers, so that each rescued cat receives needed medical care and is welcomed with kindness into a foster home to prepare for adoption into a permanent, loving home.

H/3 Foundation's support will allow Anjellicle Cats Rescue to help more cats with known medical issues requiring specialized care, such as cancer, surgery due to trauma, extensive lab work to determine treatment for chronic conditions, and radioactive iodine therapy to cure hyperthyroidism. With a focus on shelter and community animals, our goal is to save and enhance the lives of sick and injured felines who were previously dismissed as "unadoptable."

Spencer B. Haber, H/3 Foundation's Founder and Chairman, commented, "We are very pleased to announce our latest companion animal partnership. Like H/3, Anjellicle is committed to helping every animal get the specialized care they need, and find a loving home. Together, with partners like Anjellicle, we believe that we can deliver game-changing progress for animals."

Nora Wood and Risa Rosenthal, Co-Directors of Anjellicle Cats Rescue, said, "A cat's rescue doesn't end when it is pulled from the city shelter or off the street. In fact, the work is just beginning. Spencer Haber and the H/3 Foundation appreciate that some cats have a tougher path to adoption and will help us tackle such medical hurdles. While many animal clinics unfortunately have scaled back their services to rescue groups, some of our partner vets namely West Chelsea Veterinary and The Cat Practice have strengthened their commitment. We greatly appreciate the generous resources the H/3 Foundation will provide to help us work with our medical partners to save more cats in need of extensive or specialized care."

About H/3 Foundation:Founded bySpencer B. Haberin 2014, H/3 Foundation Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to creating game-changing progress for animals globally. H/3's primary objective is to innovatively raise awareness among people from all walks of life of the special animals with whom we share the planet. To that end, H/3 focuses on creating and funding media projects, including the production and co-production of feature-length and short documentary films, that directly impact the way people relate to animals and the environment. H/3's other important initiatives include funding and developing humane education curricula, a myriad of direct action projects, and support for animal rescue and first-responder organizations.

H/3 Media Contact:Jessica Fazio, [emailprotected], 203.569.5147

About Anjellicle Cats Rescue:Anjellicle Cats Rescue (ACR) is an all-volunteer registered 501c3 cat rescue committed to helping make New York a no-kill city. As one of the most active cat rescues in the 5 boroughs, ACR is dedicated to rescuing, rehabilitating and adopting out homeless and abandoned cats, with a focus on shelter and community animals. Many of these felines are sick, injured or dismissed as unadoptable. Through a coalition of volunteers and caregivers, each rescued cat is welcomed with kindness and medical care into a foster home to prepare for adoption into a permanent, loving home. Anjellicle Cats Rescue believes that no animal should be ill-treated and strives toward a day when awareness, education and compassion have replaced euthanasia as a solution to companion animal overpopulation.

For more information on Anjellicle Cats Rescue, please visit anjelliclecats.com

Anjellicle Cats Rescue Media Contact:Nora Wood, [emailprotected], 646.457.2130

SOURCE H/3 Foundation

h3foundation.org

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H/3 Foundation and Anjellicle Cats Rescue Partner to Save and Permanently Place Homeless and Abandoned Cats - PRNewswire

Last week brought us the image of a half-naked man, painted and crowned with buffalo horns, howling from the speakers dais in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol. Seeing him standing there, it is not unreasonable to conclude that we have all lost our minds. But why?

Is it simply the result of almost a year of lockdowns, punctuated by a toxic election cycle and mass events of civil unrest? Or have we lost touch with something more basic?

The two inescapable realities, as the saying goes, are death and taxes. You dont hear the phrase much anymore, and for good reason. We have done our best to forget death and what it can teach us about how to live our livesas evidenced by our nursing home culture and the burgeoning euthanasia movement.

Along with our willingness to look death in the face, our postmodern society has largely jettisoned faith in God, in whose image we are made with love. Faith once helped us to understand both death and the dignity of every human life. Faith once sustained our communities, and helped individuals make sense of the inevitable things beyond our control.

As we have given up faith and obscured our mortality, we have clung more tightly to political life, elevating the ultimate significance of politics. The coronavirus pandemic has laid painfully bare the limits of our politics. Politics cannot sustain us, let alone save us.COVID-19 has revealed a crisis of faith, and the evidence is all around us. The coronavirus has taken a deadly toll, and has made us all suddenly aware that we could die.

In a remote way, we always know this. We drive past accidents on the road, maybe we think to check our seatbelts. But theres something very different about a virus that spreads invisibly, spiraling beyond our attempts to control it.

We are all afraid of death. How we react to that fear is a question of formation.A society formed largely without any mature understanding of mortality and mostly shielded from suffering, one that believes the here and now is all there is, encounters the uncontrollable immediacy of death in a pandemic as an existential shock. To a society with no formation in the hope of eternal life, death is a maddening abyss, and will inspire irrational fear.

An irrational fear is rarely constructive. It can lead us to imbue tools like masks with talismanic power, and wear them even when alone in a house or car. It can also lead to nihilistic denial, both of the virus itself and of real chances to mitigate it.

When politics replaces religion as the object of faith, our fear of death also leads us to misplaced messianic expectations.In this country we have seen many drawn to the gnosticism of conspiracy theories and Internet demagogues, devotedly seeking explanations and answers to our mortality in politics.

We have seen, in addition to men dressed up as pagan gods, sincere expressions of religious fervor for a politics of deliverance: Men and women sincerely professing that their preferred candidate is Gods anointed, their opponent the antichrist, and the peaceful transfer of power the Apocalypse.

There is, of course, another way. A personor societyformed with a healthy understanding of mortality, enlightened by faith, does not cease to fear death, but can react to that fear rationally, and have a rational conversation about how to carry on.

A society with a rational fear of death is grounded in knowledge of the value of every human life. It can evaluate and accept the utility of some public health measures, like mask-wearing in public spaces, social distancing, and avoiding large-scale indoor gatherings.It can also, in valuing human life, have conversations about the social costs of lockdowns: the effects on mental health, the surges in drug and alcohol abuse.

Above all, a society with a rational fear of death, illuminated by true faith, can accept that no solution is perfect and no plan foolproof, because nothing apart from Godand nothing this side of eternityis. It can prize the good of every life and accept each death in hope, and in doing so it can be a sign of hope to others.

This is not faith as fatalism, or freedom from responsibility to the common good. On the contrary, a rightly-ordered perspective on the mortal and the eternal calls us to mutual concern and sacrifice: to love God, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

The virus will eventually pass. When it does, we will need to revitalize far more than our economy. Mere technocratic solutions will prove as flawed and limited after the pandemic as they were during and before it.We have the chance, if we can see the need, to form our society in faiththe only vaccine against the madness of death without hope.

Ed Condon is editor atThe Pillar.

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The Limits of Politics | Ed Condon - First Things

The recently ended 2020 brought us a multitude of news, most of it bad, but also some good. Others, however, depend on the perception of who evaluates them. This is the case of the approval of the euthanasia law in Spain. The news was a joy to those who believe that the right to life should never minimize the right to death. At the other extreme, it was a jug of cold water for those who refuse that someone can die before their time really comes. The opinions are respectable, of course, but a question is worth asking in this regard. Would the latter think the same if we did not live with him taboo of death in our society?

Contrary to what happens in other cultures, in the West it is a topic that is avoided, that is not usually discussed unless there is no other option. And that poses a lot of problems. Not only in order to normalize situations such as euthanasia. Also because sometimes it makes us live in a situation of permanent anxiety for what might come. This is why breaking down these taboos is so important. Assuming that dying is something natural and that one day the time will come for all of us, even if we dont like it, can help us enjoy life more. And, above all, not to suffer because others decide that the time has come to end the torment that theirs had become.

Noelia Fernndez Urbano She is a family doctor, an expert in palliative care and emergencies and emergencies. She is one of the founders of Cuipal, a company based in Almera dedicated to palliative care at home. From his work, he has seen how the fear generated by the taboo of death can even lead some people to receive the last moments of their lives with more suffering.

Many people reject palliative care because receiving it would mean assuming death is near

Many people they show resistance to being cared for, He explains to Explica.co in a telephone interview. It is not fear or rejection of us, but fear of death, because if we attend to them it means that they approach it.

This is an issue that should be worked on with both family members and patients. Therefore, in all these cases the intervention of a psychologist. Neither social security nor the public service have psycho-oncologists, but there are in NGOs, such as the Spanish Association Against Cancer or the La Caixa Foundation, explains this expert in palliative care. From the company we cannot work directly with them either, but we refer them and it seems to us a fundamental mission. The excellence would be for the team to always have a piscooncologist, as they are prepared to accompany patients . It should be noted that the term psycho-oncologist refers to those who accompany cancer patients in the last stage of their life.

However, there are also other psychologists specialized in accompanying other types of patients. Usually the AECC, being specific to cancer care, treat these patients, but the La Caixa Foundation also treats non-cancer patients. However, Noelia clarifies that with the latter it is sometimes more complicated for them to access these services, since it is not always so clear when they should enter palliative care.

The psychologists they can help patients approaching death get down those last steps on the road. They can also help people who spend their entire lives dreading the end, even without being sick. But, maybe, if they had talked more about the subject When they were small all these people, one and the other, would not require psychological help.

Sometimes we avoid telling children about the death of a relative because we would not know how to react to their sadness

And it is that the taboo of death begins precisely at that stage. For example, it is very tangible when a family member dies and is hidden from children. I always say that these behaviors are born from love, says the doctor consulted in this way. The family does not want to harm them, it wants to protect them, thinking that if death is reported, the children will suffer. And possibly they do; since, as Noelia continues, sadness is an inevitable feeling. Must learn to accompany that feeling, dont try to avoid it at all costs. In our society it bothers us that people are sad, because we have no resources, he says. We dont know what to do if the children start to cry and thats why we dont tell them. It is rather a lack of resources for adults to know how to accompany .

That is why it is important to work with these resources with adults, but also with the concept standardization of death with children.

It is for this reason that Dr. Fernndez considers that it is an issue that even should be treated in schools. When they study the life cycle they should be told that it is part of it . In addition, there are stories and other types of specific material to work with the death of a relative. I believe that children are more pragmatic and simple at the time of integrating natural things , he argues. We give more emotional charge, but they are more of the here and now.

Both Noelia and Almudena, her partner in Cuipal, have learned to relativize what happens at work. If we were saddened, we couldnt have this job, he explains. It helps me connect with the present, because I dont know what will happen tomorrow. Death is the only certainty of life, because we all know that we are going to die, but we dont know when .

Without many dramas, assuming the future death helps to live in the present

So if we all managed to break down that taboo of death, perhaps we would enjoy life more. Without being too dramatic, keeping that single certainty in mind helps us to enjoy more of the moments.

Accepting that does not mean surrendering to death. Neither recognize the right to die of a person is a contempt for life. People who have been able to break this taboo of death have not done so because they want to die. I dont want to die, it doesnt suit me, says Noelia with a touch of humor.

But not wanting to die does not have to conflict with assuming that it is an inevitable procedure. And much less with understanding that it is the only wish of those people whose life has already become something much more feared than death itself.

The article The taboo of death and the fear of euthanasia prevent progress in the right to die was published in Explica.co.

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The taboo of death and the fear of euthanasia prevent progress on the right to die - Explica

The Catholic Bishops of Germany repeat the Church's opposition to medically-assisted suicide, and say every dying person needs to be supported with the Christian message of hope.

By Lisa Zengarini

From a Christian point of view, assisted suicide is not an ethically acceptable option."

The German Bishops Conference (DBK) spokesman Matthias Kopp reiterated that point in response to an article published Monday by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Faz).

In the article, entitled Allowing Medically Assisted Suicide, Prof. Dr. Reiner Anselm and Reverend Ulrich Lilie argue that: Church institutions should guarantee the best possible palliative care, but not refuse assisted suicide and should offer advice, support and accompaniment to a people who wish to die, respecting their self-determination.

From a Christian point of view, people's freedom to decide for themselves at every stage of their life according to their personal ideas is very important and this applies to death too, providing the rule of law is respected, Kopp explains in astatement published on the DBK website.

However, this does not make suicide an ethically acceptable option, the German bishops spokeman stresses. He also notes that research shows that the desire to end one's life is, in most cases, the result of fear, despair resulting from extreme situations, and therefore cannot be understood as the expression of self-determination."

For this reason, he says, the desire to commit suicide cannot be accepted without asking questions, nor considered as a normal form of death. On the contrary, it is precisely in these "highly dramatic situations of life that respect of self-determination requires a special observation and an empathic attention."

The spokesman, therefore, reiterates the Church's position that allowing assisted suicide is not the right answer to the problem. What is needed in these situations is not a help to die, but rather "support to develop prospects of life."

He also points out the risks of all sick people being pressured to give their consent to assisted suicide so as not to be a burden to others... This must not happen!" he says.

Referring to the pastoral care for people with suicidal thoughts, Kopp further emphasizes that it cannot be neutral.

It approaches each person with an open mind while at the same time giving a Christian message of hope and is always on the side of life, he says. Pastors accept people for what they are while offering orientation. This is how the Catholic Church and charitable institutions promote life. Making it possible to offer assisted suicide in their facilities would incompatible with their nature.

Euthanasia in Germany is illegal according to the German Constitution.

However, in February last year the Federal Constitutional Court of Karlsruhe allowed pro-euthanasia associations that help people commit suicide to publicize their activities, declaring a law which was approved by the Bundestag (the German Parliament) in 2015 unconstitutional.

See the original post:

German Bishops reiterate opposition to assisted suicide - Vatican News

(Liz Masoner/Pixabay)

By Gina Christian Posted January 14, 2021

A new legal decision against a proposed safe injection site in Philadelphia is being welcomed by several area faithful.

On Tuesday, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the nonprofit Safehouse would violate the federal crack house statute (part of the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act) by opening a facility for supervised intravenous consumption of illegal drugs.

It is a correct statement by the court, said bioethicist Steven Bozza, director of the archdiocesan Office for Life and Family.

Thank God for this victory, said Father Douglas McKay, founder and chaplain of Our House Ministries, a Catholic-based recovery outreach in the Grays Ferry section of the city. We shouldnt be going in the direction of safe injection sites. Its a form of euthanasia.

In the majority opinion, Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote that Safehouses admirable motives to counter overdose deaths did not justify measures that defied the existing law, which bans maintaining drug-involved premises, even temporary ones.

(Archbishop Charles Chaput: Safe injection sites a dose of despair)

Back in 2019, Safehouse received a green light for the project from U.S. District Judge Gerald McHugh, who held the law was not applicable, given the nonprofits goal to reduce drug use by providing a space for clients to self-inject while receiving overdose interventions, clean syringes and referrals to treatment resources.

Safehouses surprise efforts to open a site last year in South Philadelphia alarmed nearby residents, hundreds of whom rallied in opposition with the support of City Councilmembers Kenyatta Johnson and David Oh, and State Rep. Martina White. The intended location, whose managers ultimately cancelled the lease agreement with the nonprofit, was in the same complex as a day care center and a special education school for young children, as well as offices that served the elderly and those with disabilities.

Citing community concerns, COVID-19 and social unrest, Judge McHugh stayed his earlier ruling in June pending consideration of the case by the Third Circuit. That court then reversed the previous decision, finding while Safehouse itself does not encourage drug use, the nonprofits purpose is that the visitors use drugs, thereby breaching the statute.

(Safe injection sites dont treat, only deflect money, former drug user says)

The majority also upheld Congresss rational basis to believe that making properties available for drug use will have substantial economic effects. Opening the site would lower the risk of drug use, which could increase consumption and thereby create more market demand, the court said, remanding the case to the District Court.

Bozza affirmed the courts observation that it could not rewrite the statute to accommodate Safehouses approach to substance abuse.

Theologically and ethically, thats relativism at its core, he said. (Safehouse) may be trying to do something good for those in addiction, but you cant just manipulate the law based on what you think is the proper course of action.

Bioethicist Steven Bozza, director of the Office for Life and Family, welcomes guests to the 2016 Pro-Life Summit in Philadelphia. Bozza hailed a Jan. 12, 2021 court decision against the citys efforts to open a safe injection site, a plan he said lacks clinical effectiveness while violating Catholic healthcare ethics. (Sarah Webb)

Last year, Bozza and addiction medicine specialist Dr. Jeffrey Berger assessed safe injection sites, concluding they violated Catholic healthcare ethics while offering no reasonable hope of benefit to those suffering from addiction.

The two referenced data from Insite, the first North American safe injection facility, that found less than seven percent of clients at the Vancouver operation accepted referrals to some type of addiction treatment.

Research shows continued drug consumption, which wreaks havoc on neural circuitry, can damage the very areas of the brain needed by an individual for recovery, including those that regulate information processing and adaptation to change. Based on imaging and neurocognitive testing, the Brain Injury Association of America stated that opioid abuse can result in a brain injury that may have long-lasting implications for sustainable recovery, community participation, and quality of life.

Each instance of drug ingestion also primes the user for relapse well into sobriety. A combination of biological and behavioral triggers can be stored in the brains motivational paths for years after an individual has ceased abusing a substance.

The long-term use of medication such as buprenorphine and methadone to combat opioid withdrawal attests to how difficult it can be to overcome drug dependence, said Bozza and Berger.

Yet for advocates of safe injection sites, science is only valuable if its convenient, said Bozza.

Theres science out there that proves them wrong, he said. In any other situation, its the science that matters, but not when it contradicts their preconceived notions.

Safe injection sites are a threat to both the surrounding community and to common sense, said South Philadelphia community organizer Anthony Giordano, a member of St. Monica Parish and, along with his wife Lisa, founder of the grassroots organization Stand Up South Philly and Take Our Streets Back.

Now counting some 13,000 supporters, the group works to improve the neighborhoods quality of life, which safe injection sites place at risk, said Giordano.

I just dont understand how anyone could think this is good for a person in addiction, or for those who live in the area, he said. It will make it a hundred times worse for everyone, wherever the site is located.

Anthony Giordano, founder of a grassroots campaign to improve South Philadelphia, addresses some 2,000 attendees at a March 1, 2020 rally he organized to protest the citys plans for a safe injection site. His son Carmen Giordano (right) also spoke at the event. (Gina Christian)

Giordano, who networks with community activists both nationally and internationally, pointed to a controversial safe injection site located in the North Richmond section of Melbourne, Australia. A number of residents there are calling to have the operation moved from its current space between a primary school and a public housing complex, while the president of the area business association described the commercial corridor as a drug dungeon. Two staff members at the site were arrested in 2019 for alleged drug trafficking.

In Philadelphia, several civic associations joined the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5 in filing a July 2019 amicus brief against Safehouse, asserting the gun violence, assaults, thefts and other safety issues surrounding the drug trade are precisely the horrid consequences Congress targeted with the crack house statute.

They are the consequences that Safehouses proposal would exacerbate and entrench, the brief stated. For (us), the impact of the illegal drug crisis in Philadelphia is not theoretical it is deeply personal.

Father McKay, who lost a brother to an overdose, agreed, adding he took exception to Judge Jane Richards Roths dissenting opinion on the Third Circuit case.

Endorsing Safehouses argument, Roth claimed the court was at risk of criminalizing parents who knowingly allow drug-using children to live at their homes, fearing they will overdose on the street a prospect Father McKay dismisses as untenable, given the cutbacks in treatment resources due to the pandemic.

Father Douglas McKay of Our House Ministries, a Catholic recovery outreach in the citys Grays Ferry section, described safe injection sites as a form of euthanasia. Having lost a brother to a drug overdose, he has spent more than four decades offering pastoral and material support to those in addiction. (Gina Christian)

Ive been on the phone with so many mothers, and they dont know where else to go because the supports are not there, said Father McKay. A crisis center will only hold them for a few hours, and theyre forced to bring their kids home.

Father McKay also challenged the post-decision remarks of Safehouse vice president Ronda Goldfein, who told media she and her colleagues remain confident that the law was not designed for Americans to stand by silently as their brothers and sisters die.

Thats exactly what were doing with these sites, he said.

Neither safe injection sites nor desperate attempts to privately shelter loved ones in addiction reverse the slow death of substance abuse, said Father McKay.

Drugs will take everything you have, and when theres nothing left to take, they take you, he said.

Instead, said Father McKay, a combination of supervised abstinence, therapy, recovery group participation and spiritual support have demonstrated success in helping individuals break free of addiction, while alleviating its harmful impact on those around them.

Collaboration between law enforcement and social services agencies can improve access to substance abuse treatment. In 2016, Bensalem Director of Public Safety Fred Harran launched a program through which police officers connect those in addiction with recovery services. So far, the effort has assisted some 70 individuals while garnering positive feedback from the community, he said.

If people get help, they dont get arrested, and they dont overdose, said Harran. Thats a win-win.

Thanks to a grant from the Bucks County Drug and Alcohol Commission, the program Bucks County Police Aiding Recovery, or BPAIR has been expanded to include 19 police departments. Trained volunteer navigators assist the officers, and funding defrays the cost of treatment.

Getting someone earlier access to treatment is beneficial physically, socially and emotionally for the families and for the community at large as well, said Diane Rosati, executive director of the commission.

Ultimately, said Father McKay, those in addiction need a different kind of infusion that intravenous drug use, under supervision or on the street, cannot provide.

Every day youre sober, the brain is healing more and more, and youll develop an awareness of life, he said. And you can begin to realize you are not your sins. You are a child of God, and you need his grace and healing. And he is with us always, until the end of time.

***

If you or a loved one are in an addiction-related medical crisis, call 911.

Resources on addiction recovery can be found on the archdiocesan Catholic Social ServicesRecovery and Hopewebpage and the archdiocesan Office for the New EvangelizationsHope in Christwebpage.

See the article here:

Court ruling against safe injection site a 'victory,' say local experts - CatholicPhilly.com

Diana Bell, For the Headlight Published 2:51 p.m. MT Jan. 14, 2021

Retro manual typewriter with printing hands and sheet of paper(Photo: vectorikart, Getty Images/iStockphoto)

As a retired physician, I have seen birth and I have seen death. The first is typically joyful and the latter is invariably sad. But death need not be a gut wrenching experience for an individual or his family.

A few years ago, my sons asked me to help them bring their dad home from the hospital to die. For nearly a year this good man had been struggling with pancreatic cancer. He fought to stay alive for much of that year, but now the end was near.

We brought him home and with the help of Hospice, he spent his final days surrounded by people who cared deeply for him. He was heavily sedated much of the time in an effort to manage pain. Unfortunately he had become quite tolerant to the effects of opioids after months of treatment. The Hospice nurses did what they could, but as the days passed, he spent his time either in pain or mentally absent.

A friend who had come to say goodbye reminded me that we consider euthanasia of animals who are sick and suffering and it was a pity that we couldnt extend this kindness to our fellow humans when they were dying. What made this more difficult was my ex-husbands stated plan to end his own life before he reached this point. Unfortunately, in the last few weeks, he became rapidly incapacitated and was unable to carry out this plan. He wanted it be over, but Death with Dignity was not a legal option in the state of New York where he lived and died.

And it is not legal in New Mexico either.

Perhaps you believe that it is up to God to determine the exact moment of death. That is your choice. But that is not my choice. When God has determined that my end is fast approaching and when I have received all that life offers, including the final lessons and the pain, I think I will be ready to move on.

Death with Dignity is legislation that allows certain terminally ill patients to legally and voluntarily hasten their deaths with the assistance of a physician and drugs. One fifth of the states in our country allow this. Physician aid in dying was legalized in these states through legislative action, judicial ruling or ballot initiatives. Seven in ten Americans believe that physician assisted suicide is a right that they should have according to the http://www.deathwithdignity.org website.

In Oregon, one of the first states to pass legislation to legalize this option, it is not widely used. Many people request assistance but do not use the drugs. In 2019 only 188 followed through to end their lives in this way. However, many drew comfort in knowing that this was an option.

On January 13, 2014, the New Mexico Second Judicial District ruled that physician-assisted dying is a right under the state Constitution, in the case Morris v. Brandenburg; however, this continued to be challenged and two and a half years later it was determined by the courts that the question should be determined by the state legislative and executive branches.

The day may come when you will opt for Death with Dignity. Make sure this is a right you can pursue in our state by contacting your state legislators today. A changes in policy doesnt happen unless we demand the change.

Diana Bell, MDis a resident of Deming, NM

Read or Share this story: https://www.demingheadlight.com/story/opinion/2021/01/14/your-turn-pursuit-right-death-dignity/4165980001/

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Your turn: The pursuit of right to Death with Dignity - The Deming Headlight

The term euthanasia comes from the Greek words meaning a good death and is the practice of intentionally ending a life to relieve pain and suffering.

At times the decision to euthanize a horse is clearly obvious. This can occur when a horse has a severe injury or an unrelenting and non-responsive illness such as laminitis or colic.

However, all circumstances are not so straightforward and many times horse owners are confronted with situations of illness, injury or aging that slowly taints the quality of a horses life. Such scenarios have become increasingly common within an aging equine population.

Horse owners faced with the dilemma regarding the timely euthanasia of their beloved equine companion often agonize and anguish about the decision in an attempt to do their best to make a wise and timely choice to put their horse down. Given the affection that develops between the owner and horse, these experiences affect many horse owners in intensely emotional ways. The decision to euthanize the horse is equally taxing whether the horse is a sport champion or a childs pony.

Veterinarians can act as trusted guides informing and educating horse owners about their animals health condition and options for treatment, yet, ultimately the decision for euthanasia rests with the horses guardian. Quality of life is perceptual and varies between individual people. In addition horses, as sentient beings have varying abilities to tolerate and/or deal with illness and pain. Clear decision-making can be further blurred by advances in medical treatment and costs, for this often compounds the emotional burden of owners who want to know that they have done everything they possibly could for their equine companion.

No one really knows for sure the answer to the question, When is the time right? however, asking questions specific to the horses quality of life can be of value in providing clear direction for the decision.

Can and/or does the horse move comfortably? Movement is inherent to the nature of a horse and thus intimately connected with their quality of life. Quality of movement for a horse declines when they are no longer able to negotiate their environment safely and comfortably. It is important they engage in behaviours considered to be of value for a decent quality of life such as rolling, laying down and rising with ease, sharing in the companionship of other horses while eating, moving together as a herd and/or grooming.

Does the horse eat well enough to maintain an appropriate body weight throughout all the seasons? Often aged horses that are dentally challenged can no longer maintain their body condition adequately to remain comfortable when the winter season arrives.

Winter in Canada can be a particularly brutal mistress for the old, unwell or frail horse with six or more months of cold temperatures, bitter wind chills and hard icy grounds. A moderate body condition is necessary to stave off the bitter cold of winter. As the condition of a horses teeth becomes poor and/or poorer they begin to show their struggle as weight loss in the late winter and/or early spring with a recovery of weight only once the green grass returns. These horses require appropriate dental care and dietary management to sustain adequate body condition throughout the winter months. Despite the additional care many of these horses will gradually fall behind and fail as the years pass. Horse owners who are aware of such a declining pattern often elect to euthanize their horse on a beautiful fall day after a good summers life, sparing the horse the hardship and uncertain fate of another inevitably hard winter season.

Has the horses approach and/or attitude to life changed? As the horses body becomes weary with chronic illness such as laminitis, arthritis, or heaves, the horse itself becomes dull, disinterested, and indifferent to the happenings surrounding it. Although the answer to this question tends to be subjective in nature, it is equally valid when assessing the quality of a horses life.

Does the horse require caretaking and financial commitments that are beyond the owners capabilities and bank account? This is not a question of judgment, but one of high pragmatic and practical relevance. Financial and caretaking responsibilities that become burdens can have far-reaching consequences for the family and the animals quality of life.

When the decision to euthanize a horse has been made the owner will need to ask themselves if they would like to be present when the horse is euthanized. Despite the humane methods being used, euthanasia of a horse can be a difficult and disturbing experience for some to witness. The most common method of euthanasia is sedation of the horse with a tranquilizer followed by a lethal injection, that is an anesthetic overdose. Other methods of euthanasia that are considered to be equally humane, if it is performed correctly, are a penetrating captive bolt or a well-placed bullet.

The final question for consideration is, What will become of the horses body? Many owners prefer to have their horse buried on the farm. If so, arrangements will need to be made with a backhoe operator to dig the necessary hole. On-farm burials varying between jurisdictions need to comply with appropriateness of zoning or municipality ordinances. In some locations, the option may be available to have the carcass rendered. Although cremation of such a large carcass is currently available it tends to be quite costly.

Under the stewardship of Mother Nature a horses fate is clearly determined as natural forces have little patience for the timelines of palliative or hospice care. When human beings become stewards and guardians of horses, much of the horses care and fate is determined from a human construct. Timely, euthanasia may very well be one of the kindest and most meaningful acts of responsible horsemanship.

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Providing "a good death" for your horse when the time comes - Manitoba Co-operator