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The “Kill Them With Kindness” Campaign – Please support a FEDERAL law for the humane euthanasia of animals
Ladies and Gentlemen of the US Congress, State and Local Representatives, and Members of the Media and Animal-Related Organizations:
Millions of animals in America’s shelters are crying out for justice and compassion. If they must die at all, they should die gently. Our great nation is home to a cruel holocaust supported by taxpayer dollars and condoned by officials at all levels of government. Americans have been informed repeatedly about these horrors by the media and animal-related organizations, and the fact that it is occurring is undeniable.
We know that “euthanasia” is the appropriate term when we must put down an animal due to old age or illness. Our society has further allowed “euthanasia” to become a euphemism for annually killing millions of young, healthy, adoptable animals in its shelters. By the time the animals are delivered to a shelter, they are already victims of human greed, irresponsibility, and lack of compassion. For those of us actively involved in America’s shelters and animal rescue efforts, humane education campaigns, spay/neuter programs, and other efforts, we have exhausted and bankrupted ourselves, financially and emotionally, in trying to reduce the killing.
Despite all of our efforts for companion animals, we have shelters and dog pounds in America where animals are placed in tin or wooden boxes, or oil drums, and hot, lung-searing carbon monoxide fumes are pumped in; or they are suffocated with carbon dioxide; or they are given a painful lethal injection jabbed directly into the heart; or they are placed in freezers while still alive; or they are drowned, some shot, some electrocuted, some dragged clawing and screaming to their deaths; some are kicked and choked on the way to the killing. When multiple animals are gassed together, they injure themselves and each other in their terror. These instances have often been documented and some local groups and governments have been successful in eradicating these cruel practices. However, these practices are so epidemic in our nation that it could take decades to eradicate them with local or state-by-state efforts.
The “Kill Them With Kindness” campaign demands one federal law: That all animal species housed in any American shelter shall be euthanized when necessary by a veterinarian or trained, certified euthanasia technician, and that the animal shall first be tranquilized before administering a lethal intravenous injection of sodium pentobarbital.
That animals are sentient beings who feel pain to the same degree as humans, who experience fear and trauma, and suffer terribly from abuse and neglect are well documented in scientific and legal literature. In America, and other countries, philosophical and legal battles are waged over “animal welfare” and “animal rights,” their issues and solutions. However, “welfare” implies how we house and care for animals and “rights” entails how animals are regarded and what they should be entitled to legally, morally, or ethically.
The “Kill Them With Kindness” campaign cannot be dismissed as just “animal welfare” or “animal rights.” It has little to do with the life of animals, it speaks to their deaths and how they should die. It goes beyond the animals and addresses one of the worst examples ever of our inhumanity and the lessons we teach our children. It does not place animals above people – it is people who must perform the killing and work in environments where the killing is conducted. As Gandhi said, “A nation and its moral progress can be judged by the manner in which its animals are treated.”
The “Kill Them With Kindness” campaign will not be able to solve the problems in our shelter system, or the fact that nearly every public-funded shelter is underfunded and understaffed, and that in many parts of the country there are no shelters, or the local shelter or dog pound may be a small, cinderblock building with no windows and no ventilation in summer, no heat in winter, with few open hours for the public, and all the animals housed there may be killed on a weekly basis. The campaign does not advocate killing as the “solution,” it addresses the killing method and the reality that the killing will continue for some time.
The “Kill Them With Kindness” campaign is a grassroots campaign being conducted by thousands of compassionate people working together to stop the inhumane killing of animals. It is bipartisan, non-proprietary, and without specific affiliations. We regret that any animal needs to die. We are sorry that we have to accept the fact that sodium pentobarbital is a cheaper solution than building all the no-kill shelters necessary to house millions of America’s unwanted pets. We hope that after we successfully pass this law America will immediately focus on all the factors that led to the current situation of shelters overflowing with animals for whom there are not enough good homes – most especially spay/neuter programs and educating the public. The law we propose will not set any “dangerous” legal precedent, it does not violate animal rights, it will not lessen the importance of any other solution for stopping the killing, or impede any other effort for animals. It is what it is: a long overdue necessity and the only practical, compassionate solution to ending one of the worst examples of cruelty in our country!
We hope that one day, America will become a no-kill nation. We hope that government will provide funding for spay/neuter programs and that the public will take advantage of such programs as well as behaving more responsibly toward their pets and accepting that pets require a lifetime commitment. We hope that government will provide necessary funding for inspectors to enforce laws that relate to animals and minimum standards of care. We hope that every school in the nation will add a humane education program to its curriculum.
The dictionary defines “holocaust” as a death by fire and several authors have compared the American situation for animals to the mass murder of innocent people in the Nazi death camps. Nobel-Prize-winning author, Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote about animals: “What do they know - all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world about such as you? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them, all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.”
For the millions of animals in America who have no hope for adoption, who await a cruel fate because of human irresponsibility, for those whose bodies will be sent to rendering plants, incinerators, or dumped in a public landfill, and for those municipalities who do not tally the bodies but count the tonnage of animal bodies disposed of, we believe the comparison is justified. America is home to The Animal Holocaust.
We hope the “Kill Them With Kindness” campaign will become an example of how well we can all work together for the love of animals. If we cannot guarantee them anything else, yet, we can and should guarantee them a gentle, compassionate death. Please help make this federal law a reality and please investigate the euthanasia practices in your own community now. Please promote and support every animal adoption resource so that we can all help put an end to the killing.
Sincerely,
Patty Adjamine
New Yorkers for Companion Animals