Senator Says Gas Chamber Is Most Humane Way for Animals and People to Die

Georgia Senator Bill Heath (R-Bremen) opposed a statewide ban on gas chambers in animal shelters, saying that it's not such a bad way to die. He makes this claim based on the time he became overcome by carbon monoxide while working on his car and it was a "drowsy, euphoric" feeling, he "wasn't worried about anything," and could understand why people commit suicide this way.

It's one thing to try to defend gas chambers on economic or political grounds, but to champion the method as humane is unconscionable. As Senator Steve Thompson (D-Marietta) said, "Between 1941 and 1945 there were about 6 million people who would disagree with you about that gas."

I'm a big believer that animals deserve not to suffer in their own right, not because their suffering can, or should, be compared to human suffering. Senator Heath didn't mention the Holocaust, but anyone for whom gas chambers does not evoke that period in time is sadly removed from history and his own humanity. Heath has obviously never read accounts of animals or people screaming and clawing to get out as they die slowly and painfully from gas. This isn't some poetic suicide scene in a movie.

Carbon monoxide is one of several gasses used during the Holocaust and, while it's not quite as horrible as death by cyanide, it inhibits oxygen from reaching the body's tissues. Sometimes the brain is cut off first, leading to relatively quick loss of consciousness, but sometimes other organs shut down one-by-one in an unpredictable, and unpleasant, order. Sometimes an animal survives and is left standing on a pile of dead bodies.

When talking about his own experience with carbon monoxide poisoning, Heath said, "There was nothing adverse about the feeling and I knew that this feeling good was a bad sign,” so he got out into the fresh air. Animals (or people) who are put in gas chambers don't have that option. It's a terrifying way to die.

But Heath doesn't believe that either. He claims that “gas is a lot less traumatic than a needle. I know that first hand. When I get a shot, I jump even now. And I don’t think there is a soul in this building that would want to hurt an animal.” He also tried to claim that gas is safer for shelter staff, despite the high risk of carbon monoxide poisoning when they're emptying out the chamber.

Heath needs real firsthand experience. He needs to stand outside a gas chamber at a shelter and watch those pets die — for the full 30 minutes that it takes. Then he needs to hold an animal that is dying by lethal injection. Animals typically don't have a fear of needles and, for the vast majority, they're gone before the syringe is empty. It wouldn't hurt for him to sit down with one or two of the few remaining Holocaust survivors, too.

About half the states in the U.S. have already banned gas chambers in animal shelters and several more are currently considering legislation. Luckily, Heath was one of only nine senators in Georgia who voted against the ban, and apparently the only one to run his mouth off in defense of gas chambers as a kind death for both animals and people.

Photo credit: dadoftheday