Much of it comes from Christian theology.

Suicide has long been considered one of, if not the, worst possible sins in Christianity. At least in the Catholic tradition, sins can be forgiven by confessing your sins to a priest and having them absolved. But you can’t do this with suicide. Per Christian theology, even a murderer or child molester can some day repent, beg forgiveness, and be forgiven of their sins. They won’t be absolved from the earthly consequences of their actions, but they’ll be forgiven in the next life. That is a core message of Christianity - no actions are truly irredeemable as long as you still draw breath.

But with suicide, this isn’t possible. You can’t confess your sins after you’re dead, and suicide means that your last act on Earth will be a mortal sin. I suppose you could maybe do confession along with assisted suicide. Maybe you have a priest on hand, swallow the poison, and then immediately confess your sin. But most religious scholars would likely argue that doesn’t work. Your contrition has to be genuine for it to count.

Anyway, pardon the digression. But this really is the root of it. Even in modern Western societies. Even among people who aren’t themselves active Christians. Even among those who’ve never stepped inside a church. Secular Western society is still heavily influenced by Christian philosophy. A strong aversion to suicide in any form is a part of this. For most Christians, voluntarily signing up for euthanasia is the easiest direct path to eternal damnation that one can achieve. The only quicker more direct way would be a murder-suicide. We’ve never had that same worry with animals. Christian theology doesn’t assign souls to animals. And even if it did, they would have no moral blame for us choosing to put them down.

Easy. Religious people who think humans are superior to any other life. This leads to killing animals for both merciful and vicious reasons. It also leads to keeping people alive by any Frankensteinian method possible while denying any death because “going to God” without enough suffering first isn’t religious enough. Although big corporations also get the right to kill people (gun manufacturers, oil & gas industry, Sackler family, etc.) so long as they profit enough off the deaths.

Because while euthanasia is generally a good thing, there are also big potentials for abuse and unnecessary tragedy. We maintain a pretense of caring about these things with humans and so most governments err on the side of caution while others think they’re such hot shit they can dance their way through the quagmire. Meanwhile, we openly don’t give a single fuck what happens to non-human animals, and our culture is predicated on treating them like objects, so you’re allowed to do whatever you want with them. Kill them because they’re suffering, kill them because they bark too loud, it’s all the same. It’s your dog-shaped object, go nuts.

Lets be honest, most humans do not view pets as equals to a human. Valuing our own species over others is just part of our biology. (not saying that I agree with this view)

If people had the legal responsibility to keep paying thousands or tens of thousands (or potentially more) to keep a pet alive at its senior years, then like… I bet like 50% of pet owners will either become bankrupt or go to jail for animal cruelty.

Laws are just written with humans prioritized… I mean… humans have healthcare¹, pets do not.

A human in an emergency situation arriving in a hospital, and they are legally required to give treatment even if the person cannot pay at the time¹, a vet can legally refuse to treat a pet in an emergency until the owner pays (not saying that would refuse, but they could).

(¹restrictions apply, varies by country)

One could argue that if euthanasia is legal, then there would be situations of: “Hey, granny is kinda taking too much resouces… maybe we should just pull the life support?” or “Okay my child has cancer and takes up too much of my money, and all this money would be wasted if the treatment fails, I’m gonna talk to the doctor and end this parasite once and for all”

TLDR : yes but (Wished it was for the greater good only, ie. respect and help people decide how they end their lives but capitalism will use it with its own vision and how it values human lives -not much-)

In addition to the usual religion + human life being supposedly more valuable than pets /many other animal, there’s the “utility” angle.

Someone here already mentioned the “is grandma Suzanne still valuable as an asset to society ? Aaaww she had a good life then. 'K bye” and it’s actually pretty huge : in a world where governments are cutting more and more social welfare budget (well, when there was one to begin with at least), promoting the right to die must include the stories of people that don’t benefit from proper care and who are way more susceptible to go with the legal way out of euthanasia. And this number, with the budget cuts, older population, whatever incapacitating fuckery that might happen will grow quickly if not properly safeguarded (and I dont trust anyone in power right now to safeguard it).

I used to be completely in favour of euthanasia as a proper, respectful ending for people in pain : we had this story in France with Vincent Humbert that encapsulated all the reasons why it should be legal.

And then, capitalism kept happening and this idea of euthanasia, as beautiful as it is if properly set, increasingly became in my mind a tool to stir the masses towards global productivity/efficiency, with a few happy yet sobbing endings.

So yeah, I’m still hesitant on this matter, and I wished it could be implemented to relieve the many persons who just want a little more respect for how they wish to die. But at the same time, if nothing more is done to increase social welfare budgets, welp. We might end up with the suicide booths from Futurama 😅

Canada has Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID). People can - with medical approval and assistance - choose to go out on their own terms.

What everyone has missed so far:

Societies typically have a value for human life - it’s often cheap. A wrongful death lawsuit is an example of this.

However, individuals with names are where it gets messy and personal and emotional.

The Republican counter to Obamacare was that “Death Panels” would tell you when it was time to put your granny down because she was costing the state too much (what they said, not what Oabamacare’s policy really was). Once it became a question of “look at your Grandma Stevens and ask yourself when it’s time to put her down” that’s when it upset people.

Also, on the flip side, pets are animals that we have forced to some degree, to put up with our BS to have a stable food source. Humans do tons of wacky shit to them. We castrate them, cut off parts of their ears and tails, cut out their uteruses, breed them to be genuine abominations, cut their hair, teach them tricks, make them wear sweaters and shoes and jewelry, and make them eat pellets made by a machine from the parts of animals we don’t want to eat ourselves. Part of breeding them and buying them is the convenience of their lives in ours - we demand they be in our lives, and so people also play a role when they exit our lives. It’s an unnatural life for most pets, and we caused it.

Which all depends on how much a society really gets into pets. Plenty of places eat dogs and cats because it’s meat that grows itself. In parts of Eastern Europe, they only fix stray female dogs, not the males, because the patriarchal men making decisions don’t want to emasculate the boy dogs.

As for euthanasia in general, compassionate care of an aged pet often doesn’t align with how people put down a pet. Many shitbag people drown inconvenient animals, including pets. Some abandon their pets miles from home in hopes of them never coming back. Some only put them down when the vet bills get too expensive. A good vet will show you a chart that helps you understand how much pain an animal is in and let the owner who wants the pet to live forever for the owner’s emotional needs understand that they have to make a decision to end it. This is exceptionally rare, and not the way things go for 99.999% of the species made our pets on this planet.

It would be great if personal freedom included your decision to die on your own terms.

Do you have any idea how much money there is in end of life care, nursing homes, and hospice? Its a many billion dollar industry. It exists mostly to rob estates from the elderly so the kids inherit nothing. Its a truly evil thing to prolong someones suffering in order to pad your bank account.

keeping sick people alive is a lot of profit.

Society is not that sick to let animals to suffer

Religion.

Historically the primary reason that euthanasia is repeatedly challenged / legally blocked worldwide.

I wish we could do for our human loved ones the same as we can do for our pets.

Assisted suicide is legal in my state and 12 others…

Because most of the members of the society (people) belive that people have souls and animals don’t.