Euthanasia Thoughts

Euthanasia is one of those always-hot topics that arises when somebody like Philip Nitschke leaps into the public arena to tell us all how inhumane we are.

Anyway, this whole whale thing got me thinking. Sydney has been in thrall over the past few days over the little-humpback-lost, Colin (turns out he is a she) who lost contact with its mother and ended up in Sydney's Pittwater. All terribly sad, this poor, pathetic figure nuzzling up against yachts thinking they might be Mum. Heart-breaking. Should have been left to die quietly, frankly, but the media weren't going to allow that.

So, the circus got interesting when NSW Parks and Wildlife decided that they were to euthanase the animal. Some idiot, possibly for a joke, called himself a whale-whisperer and was filmed by news crews whistling and beeping over the whale while it 'told him' it could swim as far as Brisbane. And got Jack Thompson along to lend some cred. Ooookay. Lordy, how could they, shrieked the Gaia-crew, you can't kill a living thing just because it might be suffering. The rent-a-crowd yelled and sallied forth about the inhumanity of the whole idea.

Right. So, if you're a human who might be suffering, society is expected to allow, nay, encourage, euthanasia. Kill the suffering human, it's the only way. Don't think, just do it! But if it's a whale, oh, no, not allowed.

Hypocrites.