The Really Hard Question: Euthanize healthy horses?

From Jim: Most of us in the rescue/sanctuary arena will stipulate that there are just too many horses. This is the result of irresponsible ownership and breeding practices. A few horses are un-homed because of the economy, but most "unwanted" horses are the direct result of bad behavior by so-called horse people. OK, that is what it is. Our stupid lawmakers couldn't address that issue on their best day with a million tries. Until the horse industry decides to police itself in an effective way, 10s and 10s of thousands of horses won't have a place to call home. The most cynical of our kind look to horse slaughter as a solution. Let's inflict the maximum pain and suffering on the innocent animals as a just response to the really crappy behavior of our kind. What the Hell? It's a lot like Swift's modest proposal. We'll just eat our over-population. Slaughtering and consuming pets is just flat out wrong. No economic argument in the world can justify immoral behavior. The Nazis sure tried it and we all know how that worked out. Oh, and for those that say animals aren't people, I agree. They're even more entitled to our protection and stewardship. So, that brings us to the question of euthanizing perfectly healthy animals because we can't afford to feed and keep them. Of course, it's our choice to not be able to afford them. We have other stuff to spend our treasure on besides living things and it would be wrong to expect the irresponsible owners to have to carry their part of the load-not capitalistic enough. Remember, the vast majority of horses are here because someone decided to breed them. They are not feral creatures. Again, that is what it is. I will accept that euthanasia is a far better option than slaughter, which in my mind isn't even an option. The painless end of life for a horse beats the heck out of starvation and neglect. There's an economy to euthanasia which most can understand and some can even get OK with the morality of it. I suppose ethicists and the like can even come up with a protocol that smacks of fairness. That doesn't exactly soften the price that those of us who have to carry it out feel and pay. We ask for donations and financial assistance every way we can think of. We volunteer to do the work. In the end, the irresponsibles overwhelm us. The actions of the foolish, greedy and misguided so-called horse people are so lasting and costly that we can't keep up. If this is how it's going to be from now on, I supposed that euthanasianists will be in high demand and the rendering plants will have plenty to do. That's really a shame for the critters.