Why is society at large okay with euthanasia for pets but not for humans?
Especially as a human can normally consent to death but a pet can't
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Especially as a human can normally consent to death but a pet can't
Religions and doctors "vowing to protect life." Especially religious doctors "vowing to protect life" even when the life means just pain and suffering that can't be properly eased with pain meds either, because you know, the dying person might get addicted to the meds. That's obviously worse.
In my country, when an elder person is too sick and "ready to be euthanized", they just stop giving them water and let them dry to death. It can take weeks. They do give some pain medication, but there is no way of knowing what amount is enough. You'd imagine that dying that way is pretty damn painful yet they don't have a way of communicating that. But if they OD'ed, it would be murder so better let them suffer!
But also, euthanizing animals is becoming more taboo too. Many pets live in pain, relying in "pet mobility carts" and medications. Antidepressants for cats, epilepsy meds for dogs.. Vets prolong the suffering for money, for people who can't accept facts and do the kind and right thing. Animals have no way of communicating about side-effects from medications. Endless rehoming is thought to be better than letting go.
My grandfather got that treatment. Fuck religions.
I am indeed sorry that Doctors who misunderstood the Bible did that to your grandfather.
To artificially prolong life in pain and suffering is extremely immoral
the Wise know that sometimes, their time has come whatever was created must either perish or have eternal life
Because we value humans much higher than animals.
^* human life, not humans. Being confined like a potted plant is considered acceptable for a person in a coma or with a severe disabilities, but not for a pet.
Uh the number of people crating their pets seems to disagree with this assertion.
People who do crating don't think they're confining anything or doing anything bad tho
yeah exactly. The person above said that "Being confined like a potted plant is considered acceptable for a person in a coma or with a severe disabilities, but not for a pet." but it sure seems to me like people think that it's fine to confine pets as well.
That's why there are no homeless, unfed, untreated medical conditions, and slave labor! 🌈🌞🦄
Well, I just said "higher" not "above all else" and the animal bar isn't that high to begin with.
Money > humans > pets > wildlife > farm animals
At least in the States, I believe it's for religious and financial reasons. Correct me if I'm wrong, but allowing someone to off themselves could be condemning them to hell. Also, to be cynical, medically assisted "checking out" is the easier, cheaper way out, instead of burning through money in a hospital.
Personally, I don't see anything wrong with ending the suffering of a terminal illness. Prolonged suffering is unnecessary, and a person should have the right to go out on their own terms.
@muxika @als what sort of a mindset is this ??
So, a human being is a liability for a state ???
I'm saying that insurance companies are greedy and want to make more money from the terminally ill, at the expense of the suffering of the patients and their families.
United Healthcare was recently caught paying nursing homes not to send elderly in medical distress to the hospitals, to save on costs.
Yeah, I think their attribution is off. Hospitals and care homes make money off of medical care for elderly and chronically ill/disabled patients from Medicare/medicaid, so there can be a perverse incentive for care providers to perform more testing and treatment than is medically necessary or advisable. Like chemotherapy for people who don’t even have cancer. Additionally, medical technology or pharmaceutical companies sometimes pay doctors for prescriptions, so there can be an even stronger incentive to provide specific treatments, even if they’re inappropriate for the patient at hand.
Insurance companies are on the opposite side of the spectrum when it comes to perverse incentives- they benefit from as few and as inexpensive treatments as possible, regardless of the reason (partially, they also sometimes have contracts with medtech and pharmaceutical companies- second link below). Whether claims for treatment are denied and the insured forgoes care, then dies; claims bounce around in the denial and appeal process for long enough that the insured dies; or the insured can be fully treated quickly and cheaply, the insurance company benefits. When they approve and pay claims for longer term or more expensive care, they consider the company to be losing money, instead of simply allocating money that they had already earmarked for general claim payments to specific insureds/recipients.
I left a job in liability insurance, which is actually very different from health insurance, but they both operate on some similar principles (and under similar bounds) of contract law, risk assessment, etc., because I didn’t agree with the ethics of it and couldn’t rationalize it to myself anymore. Even internally, at every level of interaction, we always phrased our goal as paying exactly what we owed, not as little as possible though. The concept of a company officially and openly naming a role “denial nurse” is wild to me. It feels like something I’d see as the joke answer in an hr training video about legal compliance at my old company.
Kudos to you for not selling your ethics.
I mean, it took me a few years, but the more I learned, the worse it got.
The psyche often refuses to believe what it finds distasteful, abhorrent, until it simply can not. It sank in, and you took action, rather than stay for "practical reasons." Credit where it's due.
@idiomaddict @Maeve l don't give my time and my energy to the government and to the corporate.
Nothing remotely like this was said.
@TrickDacy what does ending the suffering of a terminal illness mean ??
Nothing to do with what was said and should be a personal choice. But I'm not participating in a weird conversation you tried to create here based on things no one said.
@TrickDacy why should suicide be a personal choice ??🤔🤔🤔
Obvious reasons but
Your trolling is weak
Much of it comes from Christian theology.
Suicide has long been considered one of, if not the, worst possible sins in Christianity. At least in the Catholic tradition, sins can be forgiven by confessing your sins to a priest and having them absolved. But you can't do this with suicide. Per Christian theology, even a murderer or child molester can some day repent, beg forgiveness, and be forgiven of their sins. They won't be absolved from the earthly consequences of their actions, but they'll be forgiven in the next life. That is a core message of Christianity - no actions are truly irredeemable as long as you still draw breath.
But with suicide, this isn't possible. You can't confess your sins after you're dead, and suicide means that your last act on Earth will be a mortal sin. I suppose you could maybe do confession along with assisted suicide. Maybe you have a priest on hand, swallow the poison, and then immediately confess your sin. But most religious scholars would likely argue that doesn't work. Your contrition has to be genuine for it to count.
Anyway, pardon the digression. But this really is the root of it. Even in modern Western societies. Even among people who aren't themselves active Christians. Even among those who've never stepped inside a church. Secular Western society is still heavily influenced by Christian philosophy. A strong aversion to suicide in any form is a part of this. For most Christians, voluntarily signing up for euthanasia is the easiest direct path to eternal damnation that one can achieve. The only quicker more direct way would be a murder-suicide. We've never had that same worry with animals. Christian theology doesn't assign souls to animals. And even if it did, they would have no moral blame for us choosing to put them down.
It sounds plausible, until you see the map of countries that have some sort of legalized euthanasia. The only few that do have it are Christian or christian heavily influenced countries.
Lets be honest, most humans do not view pets as equals to a human. Valuing our own species over others is just part of our biology. (not saying that I agree with this view)
If people had the legal responsibility to keep paying thousands or tens of thousands (or potentially more) to keep a pet alive at its senior years, then like... I bet like 50% of pet owners will either become bankrupt or go to jail for animal cruelty.
Laws are just written with humans prioritized... I mean.. humans have healthcare¹, pets do not.
A human in an emergency situation arriving in a hospital, and they are legally required to give treatment even if the person cannot pay at the time¹, a vet can legally refuse to treat a pet in an emergency until the owner pays (not saying that would refuse, but they could).
(¹restrictions apply, varies by country)
One could argue that if euthanasia is legal, then there would be situations of: "Hey, granny is kinda taking too much resouces... maybe we should just pull the life support?" or "Okay my child has cancer and takes up too much of my money, and all this money would be wasted if the treatment fails, I'm gonna talk to the doctor and end this parasite once and for all"
Which is exactly why I'm in favour of euthanasia for humans on a moral level (people should be able to decide their own fate) but against it on a societal level (it will likely result in people getting pressured into "choosing" death.)
The harm of the people who are unable to choose death (a.k.a commit suicide) on their own suffering is a lesser evil compared to people who want to live being pressured into dying (in my view).
Right?! For example in Canada they have "MAID" (Medical Assistance in Dying) and it's a good start but recently they tried to add mental disorders to it and it's really itchy for me.
Yeah I got major downvotes on here once for saying MAiD for mental health problems seems ripe for abuse. Isn’t suicidal ideation a symptom of many mental health issues? And the state is just going to help people fulfil those urges rather than treating the underlying illness causing them? Seems crazy to me
TLDR : yes but (Wished it was for the greater good only, ie. respect and help people decide how they end their lives but capitalism will use it with its own vision and how it values human lives -not much-)
In addition to the usual religion + human life being supposedly more valuable than pets /many other animal, there's the "utility" angle.
Someone here already mentioned the "is grandma Suzanne still valuable as an asset to society ? Aaaww she had a good life then. 'K bye" and it's actually pretty huge : in a world where governments are cutting more and more social welfare budget (well, when there was one to begin with at least), promoting the right to die must include the stories of people that don't benefit from proper care and who are way more susceptible to go with the legal way out of euthanasia. And this number, with the budget cuts, older population, whatever incapacitating fuckery that might happen will grow quickly if not properly safeguarded (and I dont trust anyone in power right now to safeguard it).
I used to be completely in favour of euthanasia as a proper, respectful ending for people in pain : we had this story in France with Vincent Humbert that encapsulated all the reasons why it should be legal.
And then, capitalism kept happening and this idea of euthanasia, as beautiful as it is if properly set, increasingly became in my mind a tool to stir the masses towards global productivity/efficiency, with a few happy yet sobbing endings.
So yeah, I'm still hesitant on this matter, and I wished it could be implemented to relieve the many persons who just want a little more respect for how they wish to die. But at the same time, if nothing more is done to increase social welfare budgets, welp. We might end up with the suicide booths from Futurama 😅
I get you but its not like its either or. If anything statistics about euthanasia would at least be an argument that social programs are insufficient. Sorta the ultimate weigh. If all places allowed it, it would likely be a pretty obvious metric for quality of life. You could not get it to zero but it would be obvious what places are not even trying. Come to think of it its obvious now why many politicians do not want to see that right be a thing.
Definitely yes ! In the scenario you propose where its legal worldwide, the comparison between countries would be brutal (aaaaand now I see buzzfeed-like articles everywhere "You won't believe what France brought back", "Best countries where to (legally) die" and "My absolution : from soldier to death caregiver, the story of the man who kept killing legally")
Short answer: religion.
"Only God can take a life"... except when it an heretic, a non believer, a sinner, ...
Killing believers = sin
Killing non believers = " the work of God"
And pets are animals and "you can do as you please".
It's honestly kind of depressing. I went all out for my dog's end of life care, ensuring it was as dignified as possible and he was as comfortable as he could be, and I hate the idea that if I were to ever come down with Alzheimer's or something, instead of going on my own terms in the comfort of my home with people I know and love, I would instead be kept alive as long as possible and then probably die with indignity, terrified and confused and not recognizing anyone around me or even my own self.
On one hand I am glad of what I was able to do for my dog, I loved him to death. I just wish that I could be afforded that same dignity when it's my turn to go.
Easy. Religious people who think humans are superior to any other life. This leads to killing animals for both merciful and vicious reasons. It also leads to keeping people alive by any Frankensteinian method possible while denying any death because "going to God" without enough suffering first isn't religious enough. Although big corporations also get the right to kill people (gun manufacturers, oil & gas industry, Sackler family, etc.) so long as they profit enough off the deaths.
Society is not that sick to let animals to suffer
Except if they're animals in the mass meat production business, then nobody cares
I always said we are more humane to animals than we are to humanes
Most animals humans own live in factory farms.
@tomsh @als are you in your mind ???
There's more profit to be made off a sick person slowly dying over years than a one-time procedure.
What the general population thinks rarely matters since our politicians are bought by the owning class.
This would only really apply in America. Most Western countries have at publicly funded healthcare systems, yet most of them do not have legal euthanasia for humans
Because while euthanasia is generally a good thing, there are also big potentials for abuse and unnecessary tragedy. We maintain a pretense of caring about these things with humans and so most governments err on the side of caution while others think they're such hot shit they can dance their way through the quagmire. Meanwhile, we openly don't give a single fuck what happens to non-human animals, and our culture is predicated on treating them like objects, so you're allowed to do whatever you want with them. Kill them because they're suffering, kill them because they bark too loud, it's all the same. It's your dog-shaped object, go nuts.
in islam we are only allowed to kill animals in self defence or for food euthanasia is forbidened in islam
Do you really want me to tell you what I think about Islam and animal abuse? Why are you bringing this up?
Yes , I Care for your Opinion and respect it pls tell me your opinion kind sir
animal abuse is a crime you cant just do whatever you want
You can place an animal in the open back of a truck in -30C weather and ship them 1,000km, knowing the whole time that the animal will arrive dead, and it is not a crime. No one will bat an eye because it happens THOUSANDS of times a year here in Canada.
You can take a perfectly healthy and happy animal, and stab it right in the throat, because you want the meat, or because you like stabbing animals, and it is not a crime. This also happens many thousands of times a year here in Canada.
Certain animals (mainly pets) have very limited protection against abuse, but those laws do not protect the life of the animal or protect the animal from needless suffering, cruelty, or violence. Factory farming exceeds these protections routinely, but the law is set up in many provinces to make reporting these crimes effectively itself a crime.
You can do whatever you want.
reread my comment
okay. now what? If you have a point to make, I suggest you just come out and make it and stop talking around your point. Otherwise you waste both of our time. "Animal abuse" isn't the name of a specific crime and most forms of animal abuse ARE NOT CRIMES.
Canada has some of the weakest animal protection laws in the Western world. Animals are property with no rights. The protections that exist are mere lip-service. Prosecutions are extremely rare and most forms of cruelty that people commonly practice are perfectly legal.
you cant just "do whatever you want" you will go to jail. i didnt know canada was so lax on it but in the usa if you arent arrested an angry mob will kill you
Religion.
Historically the primary reason that euthanasia is repeatedly challenged / legally blocked worldwide.
Because pets aren't leaving anyone large sums of cash in their will.
Surely some of the pets of eccentric millionaires have money left to them that will go to someone else when they die. 🤔
I mean there a countries where a person can die by volition for example in switzerland, so if you have a disease and suffer a lot you can let yourself be euthanised. Things get messy because even the option can make it so people could gaslight each other into getting euthanized to get inheritance quicker and all sort of that nasty shit. And I guess animals can't really spell out if they want to die or not.
When it comes to deciding for people who can't decide for themselves, in germany you can allow somebody else before you fall in coma to decide about stuff for you regarding health so they can ask the doctors to turn the machine of keeping you alive.
I guess its also a strict taboo for doctors with the vow to protect lives. But there's been a push for it in some parts of the world. There are also stings in history where people with mental illness were regarded as "not worthy of living" in nazi germany for example and basically killed. So thats one reason for example it also remains a taboo with many liberal countries rethinking on the (consentual) euthanasia for those suffering and having the legit wish to die.
In Germany where I'm from you're legally allowed to be prescribed medication that ends your life but you have to administer it to yourself. There also the difference of passive and active euthanasia. Active is where doctors can administer it to you with consent. Passive is what I described for Germany. It should really be allowed more commonly in the world tho. The passive one sucks for people who are paralyzed and can't administer it to themselves because anyone else that does it will only do so illegally
Here a map from 2022.
In Canada, nobody can decide it for you, even if you have a Representation Agreement, which is the medical do decisions.
You need to go through at least two independent psychological assessments and you need to be legally totally sound of mind. So if you take too long to make the decision and you have something like dementia, you're not allowed to have a medically assisted death.
This is why I find it so crazy when people freak out about it here. Like we have so many hoops through jump through, it's not something that you can just walk into an office and a doctor will just shoot you up.
TBF the uproar is from people who also believe children are getting sex changes at elementary school.
because of WW2 and the experiences made there.
if euthanasia was legal, it would be immediately used against some kind of disadvantaged group, which is why it's kept forbidden.
Euthanasia is already legal in some countries.
And there are already some controversy around disadvantaged groups getting suggested applying for euthanasia, some even going through it.
Source?
In my country euthanasia has to be required by the person wanting to ending. Nor the government nor any other person or organization can ask for this procedure to be done to an unwilling person.
The person has to require twice, and be evaluated by a comitee of medical doctors to ensure that it has a chronic disease that could not be cured and that it's causing ongoing pain that would not get better with medication.
https://www.sanidad.gob.es/gabinete/notasPrensa.do?id=6823
Statistics on it doesn't point to it being "targeted to anyone". More so, there are many people who ask for it and cannot get it in time and die of natural causes before the procedure could be done.
Rewording my original comment then...
Why would those disadvantaged groups agree to being euthanized?
Agree or persuaded.
How do you imagine that would work?
I live in a country that allows for euthanasia and it’s not like you just walk into a doctor’s office and ask for a suicide pill. It’s a long process involving multiple doctors and psychological assessments.
Probably for budget reasons. Someone comes up with an idea that the state should cut spending on the sick and elderly and start campaigning on how we should be focusing healthcare on only the fit and the strong to save the nation. Then we just need to make the patriot pill easily available and remind sick people of how big of a burden they are.
I know, that was a bit far fetched and personally I think the terminally ill should have a way to leave with dignity instead of jumping off bridges or driving into oncoming traffic.
That’s already the case with private health insurance.
Where I live euthanasia is available in case of “suffering without chance of improvement”, which includes mental health issues in very rare cases (and only after every treatment option has been exhausted).
The last few years there has been some discussion to allow for euthanasia for people who feel they have “completed their life”. As in: elderly who don’t want to spend their last few years in an old peoples home wearing adult diapers slowly withering away. They had a good life, they feel like there is nothing left for them to do on this earth and just want a dignified death on their own terms. There is something to be said for that.
Let's not forget that there are people who love simplifying regulations. (And they even have significant influence nowadays in the EU. 😞 )
This document says they did.
I'm pro-euthanization but if we're going to get into a consent in fascist countries debate then I think it's not very hard to fake.
To add to the comments; many people and laws still view animals as objects, to do with as one pleases. I still hear americans -i'm from europe- talking about animals as 'it'.
Edit; typo
Same in Europe though. In fact "it" is just the proper pronoun for a lot of animals in gendered European languages.
Part of Me calls animals "it" because it's kinda messed up to force human constructs of gender on them. I always try to put in effort to call babies "it" until they're old enough to state their pronoun preference. But with animals, I don't think the "it" pronouns are as important, because they don't understand. So there's a much bigger part of Me that's willing to gender animals than babies.
Why not use “they”? Its gender neutral without being objectifying
Because the talking animals I know tend to prefer "it". The ones who were unfortunately born in human bodies, I mean.
And because singular "they" implies personhood, and I don't want to project personhood onto animals. Instead, I want us to decouple our ethics from personhood and treat non-persons with some level of equality with persons. You shouldn't need to be a person in order to have rights. Calling animals people just reifies the supremacy of persons, and causes more issues down the line when it comes to the questions of non-persons who aren't animals, and their rights. Like aliens and AIs.
If they can talk, they have a human mind. And apparently they have a human body. Idk man kinda just sounds like you’re talking to humans to me
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otherkin
This is delusional
That's what bigots say about trans people.
Euthanasia is accepted and has been legal in Belgium for decades. It's not perfect but clearly better than nothing as it has stopped many people from needlessly suffering or worse, forcing their loved ones to discover their bodies after doing it themselves. (Though it still happens as many, many things aren't covered or extremely hard)
It is actually legal in Canada, you have the right to kill yourself there
Technically, if you're successful, you have the right to kill yourself anywhere. Don't let your dreams be dreams. I'd absolutely pull the plug on myself if the time came where I just wanted to fuck off. Hard to arrest and take a corpse to trial.
The problem is by the time you're bad enough to say "fuck this" you may not be physically able to pull the plug. My dad had terminal cancer. One day he thought he was just tired and went up to take a nap. He laid down and never sat up again. He died a week and a half later. Unfortunately for my dad my state didn't allow for terminal patients the choice to end their life. As of this year it is allowed if you have a doctor saying you have less than 6 months to live.
Same with my mom and cancer. One Saturday she took a long nap and missed a pain medication dose, as my dad thought she'd be better off getting the rest. Never got back up unassisted and was gone within 10 days. She never would have opted for euthanasia anyway, super Catholic, but it was crazy how fast, and then how slowly, the whole thing unfolded.
I have multiple plans in place for myself if I end up facing down the same fate. Religion wasn't catching for me so if I get a terminal diagnosis, I'm living it up and then Irish goodbying. Really sorry about your dad.
Sorry to for your loss buddy :(
keeping sick people alive is a lot of profit.
Because you need to control humans, but there is no need for pets.
In fact, it seems that euthanasia and abortion are more difficult where religion is stronger.
The US just pretends to be against it due to puritanical traditions. In reality we keep guns legal so people can blow their own brains out when they get fucked by late stage capitalism. Suicide is the majority vs murder when it comes to gun deaths.
What everyone has missed so far:
Societies typically have a value for human life - it's often cheap. A wrongful death lawsuit is an example of this.
However, individuals with names are where it gets messy and personal and emotional.
The Republican counter to Obamacare was that "Death Panels" would tell you when it was time to put your granny down because she was costing the state too much (what they said, not what Oabamacare's policy really was). Once it became a question of "look at your Grandma Stevens and ask yourself when it's time to put her down" that's when it upset people.
Also, on the flip side, pets are animals that we have forced to some degree, to put up with our BS to have a stable food source. Humans do tons of wacky shit to them. We castrate them, cut off parts of their ears and tails, cut out their uteruses, breed them to be genuine abominations, cut their hair, teach them tricks, make them wear sweaters and shoes and jewelry, and make them eat pellets made by a machine from the parts of animals we don't want to eat ourselves. Part of breeding them and buying them is the convenience of their lives in ours - we demand they be in our lives, and so people also play a role when they exit our lives. It's an unnatural life for most pets, and we caused it.
Which all depends on how much a society really gets into pets. Plenty of places eat dogs and cats because it's meat that grows itself. In parts of Eastern Europe, they only fix stray female dogs, not the males, because the patriarchal men making decisions don't want to emasculate the boy dogs.
As for euthanasia in general, compassionate care of an aged pet often doesn't align with how people put down a pet. Many shitbag people drown inconvenient animals, including pets. Some abandon their pets miles from home in hopes of them never coming back. Some only put them down when the vet bills get too expensive. A good vet will show you a chart that helps you understand how much pain an animal is in and let the owner who wants the pet to live forever for the owner's emotional needs understand that they have to make a decision to end it. This is exceptionally rare, and not the way things go for 99.999% of the species made our pets on this planet.
It would be great if personal freedom included your decision to die on your own terms.
Canada has Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID). People can - with medical approval and assistance - choose to go out on their own terms.
I can't answer that but I would ike to use this discussion to say that I'm generally impressed by veterinarians. They have patients that are actually different species and (e.g. in dogs) their size and weight varies widely. They can't speak or consent to anything and they often actively hide if they're in pain or impaired. Placebo effect probably doesn't really work either.At the same time the owners (if it's a pet) often love them like a child and get super worried and / or pissed if something happens.
Also regularly performing euthanasia (without the patients consent) probably is pretty though on their psyche.
Because most of the members of the society (people) belive that people have souls and animals don't.
ha ha okay
I wish we could do for our human loved ones the same as we can do for our pets.
No idea. Its kinda crazy because they will do hospice where you allow them to die and give painkillers to mitigate the torture but won't just end it. My mom had a stroke and they would not give her an overdose of barbituates but would give her some so her dehydration death was theoretically not as painful as it might otherwise be for whatever she could feel in her kinda coma condition. Took a week or more. They say 3 days without water but it takes longer than that.
Do you have any idea how much money there is in end of life care, nursing homes, and hospice? Its a many billion dollar industry. It exists mostly to rob estates from the elderly so the kids inherit nothing. Its a truly evil thing to prolong someones suffering in order to pad your bank account.
Assisted suicide is legal in my state and 12 others..
I think opinions are shifting as people become less religious.
I don't have a good source, but my instinct is that 'society at large' in many (probably most) places is at least in majority 'okay with human euthanasia', and has been for quite a while. It's the laws that need to catch up, but don't due to lack of political will and a vocal minority.
A disturbing portion of the populace gets off on cruelty
We live in a hierarchy of sentience. Where an animals' lives have less value then a humans.
The "at large" folk are the same folk that justify what Trump and other war powers, terrorists et al do by killing other humans (i.e. murder) for the sake of ideology. It's the same thing. These people's silly books make it so that you can't off yourself because it's a "sin". They're ok with you suffering without limbs on a daily basis without proper healthcare, die during childbirth, etc. Quitting life prematurely thoughl? No, that's clearly way worse to these people.
Canada has m.a.i.d.
Australia also now has vounlantary assisted dying for people with terminal illness.
Because we are so stupid and terrified about death.
Suicide only stopped being a crime in many parts of the world recently... Euthanasia is much larger step beyond that.
Let's give things time.
There is option of euthanasia and I think in some kind of gas chamber form atm in Switzerland but it costs money. Personally I think its fucked up, but from the standpoint of many doctors even its a humane solution. There were numerous polls about it, even in favor for those suffering from severe depression.
because animals aren't sentient. they also have far shorter life spans.
also pragmatically, we are not willing to spend as much or invest as much in animal medical care as we do human medical care.
I'm not going to spend 30K to save my dog/cat, but I sure as would my spouse or child.
Most well cared for dogs and cats are euthanized when they are at the natural end of their lifespans and no longer have a good quality of life. Bodies grow old and die. It doesn't matter how much money we invest in medical care, human or animal. At best it can buy a few more (often painful) months or years.
Euthanasia is most often chosen when life is no longer enjoyable for the patient. I think the moral question the OP is posing is why we offer this kind relief to companion animals and not have this option for ourselves.
That very much depends on your definition of Sentience. The most basic one is just "the ability to sense and feel", which means a lot more things than humans are sentient.
Some sharks and turtles want to have a word with you.
The word for human-level awareness is sapience. All animals are sentient by definition.
You have noticed that there is a difference between humans and pets, haven't you?
This comment provides no value to this discussion. If you want to contribute, you should explain the big deciding difference and not just expect everyone to magically know the point you are trying to make.
It is certainly open to interpretation.
One could say "yes, they are different because humans can explicitly state when they are ready to go." I don't think that was the point they were aiming for though.
If you don't understand that difference, what is the point of discussing this?
They obviously understand the difference in principle, but if you want to contribute to the discussion you should explain why that also makes a difference w.r.t. euthanasia.