by xrodolfox » Sun Dec 18, 2011 1:21 pm
I think it is totally ethical to spay/neuter cats or other animals that live with humans.
Cats, for example, cannot make ethical decisions. However, we humans can. A cat cannot decide (or not decide) to get spayed/neutered at any point in their life. A cat cannot regret making such a decision, nor can they be happier about it.
A human, however, can, and should, take consideration of the cat(s) when making such a decision. It is similar to how adult humans make decisions about their own elderly family member with dementia, or their children before the children have the cognitive capacity to make decisions. A cat still should be given ethical consideration (not killed without very important reason, allowed to be be happy, to be loved by friends, etc). When deciding about whether a cat has to be declawed or neutered, a human has to take into account the reasoning.
The reasoning for declawing a cat is VERY shabby unless it is for the cat's own protection. Declawing a cat is purely for the benefit of the human's furniture, clothing, or lap. The issues of a clawed cat can EASILY be dealt with by means other than declawing. Declawing is just not needed for the benefit of the human nor the benefit of the cat. In fact, declawing causes great harm to the cat.
Spay/Neutering is not at all like that. Spay/neutering is mostly beneficial for cat populations, and often beneficial for the individual cat. Spaying/Neutering is also often beneficial for the humans too (unless you breed cats for profit). The potential harm from spaying/neutering is really minimal (infection post operation). I think that when done en masse, spaying/neutering can be most problematic, without individual advocates for the cats, but I think that is mitigated by the small amount of harm done by neutering/spaying.
Euthanasia is something that I support for humans/animals, but the problem when doing it with animals is that animals have no voice. Without a specific human advocate or caretaker who loved and cared for that animal, euthanasia can be a horrible tool, since the harm done to an animal to an animal that would loose a lot of healthy loved life is huge. Euthanasia done in small batches initiated by a *loving* human in relation to they ill/sick/old or otherwise dying and/or suffering animal friend is something quite different than mass euthanasia started by an organization culling numbers to have more empty beds with the assumption that the animals will suffer en masse, but not knowing the individual animals involved.
The basic crux of the question revolved around whether we human caretakers have any rights to act on behalf of animal's health. I think that the answer is "YES", especially for those animals we care for individually or societally. If/When farm animals are freed, we may have similar questions arise for farm animals. In those cases, the same ethics should apply. In fact, I think that those same ethics apply to humans too.
Scientific facts aside, what I've seen is enough to convince me it is best to keep on neutering.
