Jan. 12, 2021
No Justice: Changes Needed
The resistance from veterinarians on changing the view of pets in the eye of the court is troubling and hypocritical. It would seem that people who devote their lives to helping sick and injured animals would be anxious to ensure that their patients receive the best care possible. One would think they would be the first to support pets being seen as sentient beings, or at the very least living property. Truth be told veterinarians benefit from owners’ love for their pets and from the increased desire to do all that is possible to save them (for their own perversion of priorities). Their financial success actually depends on this type of sentiment.
Veterinarians’ claim that elevating companion animals’ status would create troubling ethical and legal issues. Their concern appears to be that if pets are viewed more like people rather than property, veterinarians would have a moral—possibly even a legal—duty to provide care regardless of the owner’s financial situation. For instance, just as a hospital or doctor in an emergency room cannot turn away someone because the human cannot pay, the same would apply for vet hospitals. Veterinary Specialty Center’s entire system would fall apart. This hospital will not treat your pet until they receive a deposit from the pet parent. Yes, they would hand you back your dying pet if you could not afford the deposit. Their heads would explode if they could not deny treatment due to financial hardships. If they were unable to turn away families.
One of the major impediments to recovering economic damages for negligent harm to an animal is the difficulty of accurate valuation of the economic worth of that animal. This needs to change immediately. Awarding “market value” of your beloved family member is heinous. There is no consideration to any of the other damages and pain and suffering for the pet and the pet’s family. The Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed with these exact thoughts.
In one case the Wisconsin Supreme Court stated, “We are uncomfortable with the law’s cold characterization of a dog . . . as mere ‘property.’ Labeling a dog . . . ‘property’ fails to describe the value human beings place upon the companionship that they enjoy with a dog. A companion dog is not a fungible item.
As the malpractice claims continue to flood the courts, and with the pet being seen as personal property, the only real change that will be made by the field will be more defensive medicine rather than optimal care. In an article I read, it stated over 90% of vets practice defensively. They do this by ordering unneeded tests and diagnostics. Etc. These veterinarians’ have already been pushing unneeded products, procedures, medicine for so long- the thought of them doing it more aggressively is very scary.
At the end of the day, nothing changes the FACT that our fur babies are our children, our companions, our family. And to our pets we are their parents and guardians. The time has come for our pets to be referred to what they really are: sentient beings. And these sentient beings are worth fighting for. They would do it for us. We all know what needs to be done here.