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Dying a dog's death? Converging and diverging ethical discourses in human and veterinary medicine about the end of life care for humans and pets and some consequences for the relations between medical and animal ethics

Subject Area Practical Philosophy
Veterinary Medical Science
Term from 2018 to 2022
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 409603981
 
Final Report Year 2023

Final Report Abstract

The project analysed the discourses in human and veterinary medicine with regard to the moral evaluation of different procedures at the end of life of human or animal patients. The procedures examined include (life-sustaining or palliative) treatment and all forms of assisted/accompanied dying (euthanasia and sedation in animals, killing on request, palliative sedation, assisted suicide and therapy limitation in humans). Critical analysis of the literature and our own empirical data (focus groups, online thought experiment) revealed convergences in the areas of treatment methods and options for dying in humans and animals, which are, however, not sufficiently reflected (ethically) either in the scientific literature or in professional practice: Treatment methods are transferred from humans to animals, the discussion about good dying in animals integrates options such as animal hospice and palliative care. In human medicine the discussion about the option of killing is taken over from the field of experience in veterinary medicine. Here, convergences and divergences show themselves to be much more multi-faceted than initially assumed: Even if certain procedures and institutions converge, significant differences remain (e.g. different purposes of hospices). According to the original proposal, "it should be possible to work out whether and how individual categories diverge.” The project has illustrated this with many examples, such as the concept of "quality of life" or the ideas of a "good death" in humans and animals. On closer examination, even the reasons for these convergences (obtained from the literature or the empirical studies developing from the project) are not always consistent: differences in terms of species, respective autonomy and level of consciousness are not systematically reflected in the discourse. In the project, therefore, mainly "marginal cases" were used for comparison: People with limited ability to express their autonomous wishes (neonates, infants, mentally impaired people or patients in comas). Comparisons and approximations can be carefully traced here. Conversely, according to the application, "it can be shown whether and which propria exist in the ethical debates and approaches in human and veterinary medicine, and how categories such as dignity, interest/preference, quality of life etc. are defined and interpreted in each case". On this last level, the questions for fully autonomous human persons (who are considered by some to possess a specific dignity) remain different from those for animals. The meta-question of the project of a unified bioethics is thus essentially answered ex negativo: here the discourses stand for themselves.

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