There are interesting parallels with morality and animal treatment and medical care that have been discussed on this thread.
Are human lives worth more than animals? First off, this assumes there exists such a thing as worth with relationship to lives. It's a moral construct that only exists because we chose to make it exist. We are humans, therefore we place more value in other humans. This is genetics not morality. We place value in the lives of pets because we grow an emotional attachment to them. Some people place value in the lives of cows. I eat cows. The morality in play is a matter of perspective, trying to place it in the context of some universal rule is an exercise in futility.
As such, we place greater value in human life. It's not moral, it's just true. I love dogs very much and have had them all my life. My dog died last year and it was a very painful for me. She died without euthanasia, but only because we felt she was still happy to be alive. Otherwise we'd have put her to sleep like the dog that came before her. Honestly, it's a comfort dogs are given that I'm on the fence that humans should be to.
The idea that because a treatment is out there that can extend someone's life and therefore they're entitled to it(human or animal) or ludicrous. Forget that there are animals put to death because their treatment is too expensive, there are people who die everyday because their medicine can't be afforded. Within reason, some charity should be provided. I don't mind working at little extra to provide for people, but there are limits.
Modern medicine can keep people alive, at great expense, for a long time. Taken to extremes, our entire economy could easily turn into a pathway to supply hospitals with the money to do that. We'd live long but we'd live like shit. Whenever some expensive new treatment pops into existence, there's something in people's mind that thinks they're entitled to it because human life is worth more than money.
Well if you think your life is worth so much, go out and spend it earning that money, but realize that money is attained by sacrificing time, which IS all your life really is. So in reality, you're saying other people should give up their life to support strangers without a choice.
I'm sorry if it's all seeming off topic but to me it's about the underlying presumptions people have with regard to this sort of thing. We die, all of us; dogs and people alike. You're going to die. I'm going to die. Everyone you ever met, no matter how much you care, will die. If you think you're going to live long enough to put your brain in a robot body or freeze yourself until that technology is available, it's not going to happen. 100% not going to.
We have to accept this and as such, don't place life on such a pedestal that you'll protect it to the point you waste it. If people want to care for pets and can't afford to, or don't want to put them through the suffering of a painful, slow death, they should euthanize them.
Now this woman, in normal circumstances, I'd say she deserves our sympathy not scorn. This could happen to any of us, period. She deserves to be treated the same way she'd treat someone else in her position. I don't know how that is. If she would go after them, she should be gone after. If she would leave them be, she shoud leave them be. Some people love animals, and that's alright. Some people are fucking assholes and use causes to justify digging into other people. You'd have to be the latter in order to harass a person who accidentally killed their dog and doesn't take it lightly. If that's what she'd give it's what she should get, but we don't know that either way.
