Man charged with cruelty for letting sick horse live; why not people too?

I saw a story on Rhode Island's local NBC news channel August 12 about a man who is being charged for animal cruelty because he would not euthanize his severely arthritic horse, and find this situation ironic.

Elliot Saffran of Milford, Mass. allegedly refused to euthanize his horse Quincy based on recommendations from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and other animal specialists. The horse was ill for a long time and died Sunday.

I am an animal lover and am passionate about animal cruelty prevention, so don't take this blog post the wrong way. I agree that it is more humane to euthanize a severly ill and incapacitated animal than it is to let it live a life of misery. It is ironic though, that we advocate for ending an animal's suffering by way fo euthanasia, but we do not give terminally ill human beings that same respect.

Here we are, charging someone with cruelty for not killing his ill animal, but we put the pathologist, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, in prison for helping terminally ill patients exercise their right to die to end their suffering via euthanasia.

Between 1990 and 1998, Kevorkian assisted in the deaths of about 100 terminally ill people before being sent to prison for it. Starting in 1999, Kevorkian served eight years of a 10-to-25-year prison sentence for second-degree murder. He was released on good behavior June 1, 2007.

In each case, Kevorkian assisted only by attaching the individual to a device that he had made, and the individuals took the final action which resulted in their own deaths by pushing a button that released the chemicals to end their own life.

All I know is that if I am cursed with some terrible terminal illness that leaves me a vegetable, drooling on myself, I want someone to end my suffering.

I hope the laws change to allow us all the same courtesy we give our animals.