Veterinary Medical Ethics

Ethical question of the month — April 2019

Your commercial poultry practice also works with smaller hobby farms. One morning you perform a flock health inspection on a large and well-run commercial duck farm with thousands of ducks on feed. This farm has excellent production and extremely low morbidity and mortality. You notice a couple of birds that are thin and unable to rise but do not discuss them with the producer or require further action since these 2 “poor doers” are outliers in an otherwise extremely healthy flock. Later that day you visit a small farm with 50 ducks where several unexpected deaths have occurred. Two birds are weak and mouth breathing. You discuss possible diagnoses with the owner and explain that the 2 birds should be euthanized on humane grounds. The owner readily agrees. Then you recall your earlier visit where you considered 2 “poor doers” insignificant in your overall flock health assessment. Should you have stopped to address 2 unrepresentative sick birds while you were performing a health inspection on thousands?

An ethicist’s commentary on euthanizing suffering ducks

My position on this case is clear. Whether the veterinarian is dealing with a farm comprising thousands of animals or a “hobby farm” with 50 animals, a sick animal is a sick animal, and the veterinarian’s obligation to relieve suffering is equally present in both cases. It is well-recognized that people have greater empathy for recognizable individuals (e.g., in disasters) than they do for large masses with which they cannot identify. This seems to be what is operative here.

Ordinary people touring both farms would have a psychological tendency to feel sympathy for the 2 ducks suffering on the small farm, while the notion of 200 animals is difficult to grasp. This can readily be seen when news media focus on a small number of individuals after a flood or hurricane. Large numbers do not excite significant empathy because the magnitude of the disaster is difficult to identify with. When we see videos of rows upon rows of concentration camp victims, all dressed in the same garb, we have a tendency to turn away — the situation is too difficult to grasp, we fail to identify with them as individuals. On the other hand, when a situation such as Anne Frank is depicted in a documentary, we can feel a bond with her; we can think of her as our child.

If we see 2 ducks struggling to breathe, that moves us. We can grasp psychologically what is happening and identify. If we are shown a barn full of ducks gasping for air, it is simply too much for us to identify with. For this reason, the veterinarian should go out of his or her way to relieve the suffering of the 2 animals. Two animals is a comprehensible number and one that will excite our empathy. One thousand animals is too large a number to excite the fellow feeling that is at the root of identifying with the suffering of others. The horror is simply too vast for our imagination to grasp. If I were the veterinarian, I would go out of my way to relieve the suffering of the 2 animals so that I never lose sight of my ultimate goal of treating suffering. Ironically, if you can ignore the suffering of 2 individual animals, you can probably ignore the suffering of hundreds — a very sure way of losing your empathy. If, on the other hand, you care about what happens to the 2, you’re very unlikely to assume a carapace of hardness over what led you to veterinary medicine in the first place!

Consider the perennial winter advertisements for humane societies. They will never show a large group of animals shivering in the cold. But they will always show one dog under that circumstance. It is because we can empathize with the one dog who is shivering. So powerful is the suffering of the identifiable individual that even my cowboy friends have confessed to me their inability to watch those advertisements!

For all of the above reasons, I would urge the veterinarian to treat the 2 ducks the way he would if they were part of the large number on the big operation. A suffering animal is a living exemplar of a veterinarian’s commitment to dealing with suffering.

Ethical question of the month — July 2019

As government support of public institutions declines, universities have become increasingly dependent on funding from alternate sources such as research grants and corporate sponsorship. These sources of funding are most often directed towards specific projects or areas of study. As a result, these alternate sources of funding are not equally available to all areas of study at a university. One area where large research grants and corporate sponsorship are limited is the field of bioethics. As a result, departments of bioethics are consolidating or disappearing in many universities across North America. How can universities ensure that students have access to a wide range of educational opportunities if funding is increasingly controlled by private sponsorship?

Responses to the case presented are welcome. Please limit your reply to approximately 50 words and forward along with your name and address to: Ethical Choices, c/o Dr. Tim Blackwell, 6486 E. Garafraxa, Townline, Belwood, Ontario N0B 1J0; telephone: (519) 846-3413; fax: (519) 846-8178; e-mail: tim.e.blackwell@gmail.com

Suggested ethical questions of the month are also welcome! All ethical questions or scenarios in the ethics column are based on actual events, which are changed, including names, locations, species, etc., to protect the confidentiality of the parties involved.