Any case is unique and deserve its own thoughts, the decision of ending the life of any living thing shouldn't be made through an emotional process but using logic. Showing empathy and
wanting hoping for things to live is good, but empathy won't magically make an injured animal feel better.
You can either end its agony, or let it wander into the wild, painfuly moving its injured body, getting rekt by other animals if it's a territorial species, or getting eaten by a predator and suffering a bit more before it finaly dies. That's what would happen to pretty much any injured wild animal. Any other story of a wild animal surviving an injury and living a happy life is because you watched too many disney movies with talking animals.
A pet, on the other side, is a different matter, you can ease its pain in a safe environment, showing it love and care and wait for its natural death. But it can also be hard to see your beloved pet suffering every moments of its day, and not showing any sign of joy whatsoever... Sometimes euthanasia is the "human" solution.
Human beings are a more complicated matter. It's not only about the dying person, it's about its entourage as well. Some people would like to live no matter what, some people would prefer to die instead of inflicting their regression and disease to their family etc... Because taking care of a seriously sick person you love can be psychologically very hard. Some people want to go before losing all dignity, some want to stay until their last moments of lucidity...
Euthanasia isn't "more inhuman" than boxing up old and sick people in "specialized institutes" until they die, alone and considered like a "job to accomplish" for people that doesn't give a fuck about them.
It's complicated, but everything has to die at some point. Life is a beautiful thing, but sometimes it's better to go before it turns into a nightmare.
Edit :
Actually I've some personnal experience to add to that matter. Not that long ago my kitty
(which is a ruthless hunter, she sometime brings 3 rodents in one day) bringed me a mouse she didn't kill in front of my door, the back of its body wasn't working properly anymore and its spine seemed fucked up. It couldn't walk straight, it was only able to stumble in circles, afraid and going to a certain death.
It put me in front of a dilemma : saving it, giving it food, a box, until it healed unproperly so it could never walk again. Letting it where it was until it painfully died on its own, or killing it.
After thinking for 10mins and seeing it wouldn't go any further, I put it gently on a sheet of paper, bringed it to the corner of my garden, under a tree, and crushed with the flat end of a log, in one strong & solid blow to destroy the brain. I had no mouse related surgical knowledge to slice its nervous system with a blade.
It didn't feel good at all, but it felt right.
Last edited by deprav; May 16, 2015 at 11:32 PM.