When I was a little kid, people always asked me if I wanted to be a vet when I grew up. I guess this is something most adults ask an 'animal crazy' kid, and I remember most people being a little shocked about the voracity of my answer:
As a thought experiment of your own, substitute your dog or cat for the car and veterinarian for mechanic. The outcome is the same isn't it? Yes, some people spend more money to "fix" their animal-property but this is only so because they place a higher value on their property than the market dictates.
"No. I never want to be a vet. I don't want to kill animals."
That sounds harsh, but that's how I thought. I never once wanted to be a veterinarian because I knew I simply couldn't stand to be the one euthanizing an animal. It wasn't that I didn't understand why euthanasia is practiced, or support it, but I knew I couldn't be the one doing it. Plus blood and gore make me nauseous, as I found out when a vet forced me to watch him excise tissue from Rivet's injured knee and I fainted. Not the job for me, thanks.
When we think of a veterinarian, we like to think of them literally as a doctor for animals. I have known many vets in my life, and many of them were amazingly kind, intelligent people. Rivet's current vet is an amazing man - he still makes house calls for small animals, for one thing, and he's able to calm down my horse, who recognizes the vet's truck by sight and sound and has more than once pulled a lead rope out of my hands trying to escape his bi-yearly shots. I appreciate him, and I trust him and his judgement. However, I recognize that his role isn't really that of doctor, it's much closer to that of car mechanic, as Bernard E. Rollin argues:
If my car is broken, I bring it to a mechanic and ask for his opinion. If the mechanic thinks that we can fix it for less than the cost or value of the car, we do; it's prudent to do so based on the market-value of the property. If not, we junk it and I get another one.
That sounds amazingly harsh, and I don't mean to suggest that all veterinarians fail to consider the well being of animals - not as property, but as living beings. Many vets do pro-bono work for just this reason. However, their relationship to animals is not the same as the relationship between doctor and human. Veterinarians have been forced to assume a role of trying to decide between the interests of humans, and the interests of those they are ostensibly supposed to be helping. Instead of being able to advocate solely for the interests (we'd say rights here, but animals have none) of their patients, they must instead consider the selfish needs of another party who has nothing tangible to loose and everything to gain if the interests of their patient are violated. In many cases, life is weighed against monetary interests, and because animals are not persons in the eyes of the law, money wins every time.
Consider this: by law, veterinarians must be allowed to examine laboratory facilities where animals are used. Many 'independent review boards' - groups established by research institutions to facilitate ethical practices - contain veterinarians. Veterinarians castrate animals without anesthetic. They examine slaughter houses. They agree to kill healthy animals because it is too expensive to keep them, or because they have been deemed undesirable by humans. They sanction these institutions by participating and condoning their conduct. What does that say about how they view those they are supposed to be helping/protecting?
Human doctors are charged with the role of keeping humans healthy, and of preventing their deaths at all costs if possible. Why should doctors for animals have a different one? When human doctors have participated in activities like those detailed above, we call it an outrage. Tuskege, the Holocaust - these are examples when human doctors have done just that, and we remember them with trepidation, and fight to keep them from ever occurring again.
Perhaps we need to redefine the role of the veterinarian in our society. One group has already begun - the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights. How strange is it that we require a subgroup to delineate that mission for veterinarians? What should their role in the lives of animals be?
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