Animal Euthanasia Becomes a Campaign Issue

With election day only a few weeks away, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is talking about a fairly rare issue in electoral politics — animal euthanasia. Quinn, who became governor after scandal-tainted Rod Blagojevich was removed from office, is running a television ad accusing his opponent, Republican Bill Brady, of sponsoring a bill making it easier to kill animals en masse in gas chambers.

It's no secret that gas chambers are a far more cruel method of ending an animal's life than lethal injection. For example, it can take upwards of thirty minutes for an animal to succumb to carbon monoxide gas, as opposed to around two minutes (or less) for a lethal injection. We've talked about this here a number of times, and it's also worth noting that the National Animal Control Association opposes gas chambers. (Unfortunately, the American Veterinary Medical Association has yet to see the light.)

Quinn is right on the substance of the issue. Bill Brady did in fact sponsor a bill (S. 2999) as a State Senator that would have made gas chamber euthanasia easier. By way of background, Illinois doesn't ban gas chambers, but they have a stringent set of laws that essentially make gas chambers an unworkable option. For instance, under the current laws, animals can only be euthanized one at a time in a gas chamber, there has to be veterinarian-submitted justification for use of the gas chamber, and a vet has to be present from start to finish.

Brady's bill, which he later passed on to a new sponsor, would have removed the one-at-a-time restriction, essentially re-opening the doors to wholesale euthanasia. Fortunately for Illinois animals, that bill has been tabled, and it's unclear when, or even if, it will come back.

Here's Pat Quinn's television ad, which lays out the case quite clearly:

It's clear that Brady's bill is bad policy. There's no need to use the gas chamber. In the tragic and unfortunate event that an animal has to be euthanized, we owe it to the animals and to our own moral obligations to do so in the most humane way possible.

Clearly, Bill Brady has some serious explaining to do to animal lovers in Illinois, although I'm not sure how you can justify supporting something like this, let alone sponsoring it.

Photo credit: -Tripp-