Does Language Matter?
Our movement is constantly asking itself if language we use is in keeping with our values to promote the sanctity of life. We ask ourselves and others whether we are “owners” of our animals or their “guardians.” We ask whether animals should be referred to as “it” or as “he” and “she.” So why don’t we question the most misleading term of them all?
Webster’s dictionary defines euthanasia as “the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy.”
Using the term “euthanasia” when a shelter is killing for population control, because it has run out of cages, because a community has not budgeted adequate funding for the local shelter, or because the shelter is opposed to TNR or other progressive programs is misleading and incorrect.
The killing in these cases has nothing to do with the animals being “hopelessly sick or injured,” it is not an individual calculus as to the condition of one cat or dog, and it is not merciful when applied to healthy or treatable pets.
Euphemisms like “euthanasia” or “putting them to sleep” obscure the gravity of what we are doing to cats and dogs as a society, and make the task of killing easier.
Nor is it always entirely painless as anyone who has witnessed the killing of animals in a shelter can attest. With some animals, there is often fear, disorientation, nausea and many times even a struggle. A dog who is skittish, for example, is made even more fearful by the smells and surroundings of an animal shelter. He doesn’t understand why he is there and away from the only family he has ever loved.
To kill this dog, he may have to be “catch-poled,” a device that wraps a hard-wire noose around the dog’s neck. He struggles to free himself from the grip, only to result in more fear and pain when he realizes he cannot. The dog often urinates and defecates on himself, unsure of what is occurring. Often the head is held hard to the ground or against the wall so that another staff member can enter the kennel and inject him with a sedative.
While the catch-pole is left tied around the neck, the dog struggles to maintain his balance, dragging the pole, until he slumps to the ground. Slowly—fearful, soiled in his own waste, confused—he tries to stand, but his legs give way. He is frightened by the people around him. He does not understand what is happening. He goes limp and then unconscious. That is when staff administers the fatal dose.
If any word in the vernacular of animal sheltering is misleading, it is the term “euthanasia.” We should no more use it when reporting statistics or when discussing killing, then we should in our interactions with the public or amongst each other. It is the very least of what we owe to the animals whose lives are ended.
“Euphemisms are misnomers used to disguise or cloak identity of ugly facts,” wrote one commentator. To which the noted writer Albert Camus replied, “The truth is the truth, and denying it mocks the cause both of humanity and of morality.”
A more fitting description of “euthanasia” to describe shelter killing could not have been written.
Submitted by Contributor Nathan Winograd
2 Responses to “Does Language Matter?”
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It is so frustrating that so many animal advocates and rescuers, even many who believe in the no-kill idea, continue to insist on using the word “euthanasia” to describe killing for space. I recently sent out an email appeal to my network of people doing rescue and advocacy, asking that they stop using this term. My message read in part:
“The vast majority of animals killed in pounds are not hopelessly sick or injured, and yet virtually every email I receive, article I read, or person I hear speaking regarding animals in the pound who are about to be killed says that they are going to be “euthanized.” I would like to appeal to everyone involved in rescue and animal advocacy to stop using the word “euthanasia” when describing an animal who is not terminally ill or irremediably suffering, but is being killed only for ostensible lack of space. We must stop using euphemisms that hide the truth, even in an attempt to be ‘politically correct.’ To use this word in this way is not only inaccurate, but it plays into the idea that killing is the best thing for the animal, even if he/she is healthy, and it works against the idea of no-kill.
“Please join with me and pledge not to use the word “euthanasia” when referring to killing healthy or treatable animals.”
Unfortunately, although I received a small number of responses agreeing with me and saying they never used the word in this way, most of the people who received the email ingored it and I see they are still using the word. It seems that either the word is so entrenched in its inaccurate usage, or people are afraid to offend those in animal control whom they must work with to save animals. In any case, We must continue to work toward more accurate usage. Words have power.
As I understand the sad history of the word, its use in the distant past was straightforward. Horrific as it is, if what “animal welfare advocates” were fighting for was killing animals in a comparatively quick and painless way as opposed to beating them to death, then the term “euthanasia” to describe what they wanted is not improper.
The issue now, as I see it, is that we have moved way beyond the days when it is generally acceptable to the majority of the public to be killing these animals at all.
In the meantime, the word “euthanasia” has become a label for an institutional procedure, and thus, a term that speaks of power. Think of it - even when a loved and irremediably ill pet is euthanized, we typically don’t say, “I euthanized my pet,” we say that I “had to have her euthanized” and “the doctor [power/authority figure] euthanized her.”
I think, Tina, that your request to people to stop using the word struck a nerve. Compare the raw and jarring: “We reserve the right to kill dogs who misbehave according to our standards” with “Our rescue sometimes euthanizes animals who may pose a danger to the public.”
Words don’t just have power - follow the words and you see the real life power laid out in all of its disgrace.