May 14, 2007 (Pasadena Star News)
Why should California adopt Assemblyman Lloyd Levine's bill requiring dog and cat owners to spay or neuter their pets? Because, the Van Nuys Democrat has said, doing so would "address the needless slaughter" of as many as 500,000 animals in the state's shelters each year.
Remember that turn of phrase: "needless slaughter." This is how Levine describes euthanizing dogs and cats.
It's a telling description because, in Levine's view, when the victims of euthanasia are not animals, but humans, theirs is a "Death with Dignity." That's the popular name of another piece of legislation the assemblyman has authored, one that would permit doctors to help kill patients whom they determine have no more than six months to live.
The bill twice failed to clear the Democratic Legislature in the past three years, but Levine and his co-sponsor, Assemblywoman Patty Berg, D-Santa Rosa, are reluctant to usher it off to an early death. This time, thanks to the co-sponsorship of Assembly Speaker Fabian Nu ez, D-Los Angeles, it could just pass.
So, too, might Levine's spay-neuter bill. If so, the warped message from Sacramento would be: Injecting a stray cat with a lethal medication is a tragedy; feeding a dispirited and vulnerable senior citizen a lethal medication is a civil right.
But coming from Levine, this all somehow makes sense.
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