Open Heart Surgery For Pets

[Kulturkampf]

While civil war rages in the Congo and AIDS claims the lives of the unfortunate all around the world:

Leading UK vets say a national blood bank is needed to save the lives of sick and injured dogs and cats.
The blood would be used for emergency trauma cases and during complex operations such as open heart surgery.
Specialist centres are now offering pet owners hi-tech treatments pioneered in human medicine, including hip replacements and radiotherapy.

BBC

Procedures which human beings cannot receive in poor nations are being given to people's pets in the UK and calls for a blood bank are occurring.
Call me a heartless conservative but if my dog requires open heart surgery to live, to me that translates into, "Well, ol' Boy, you had a good run; live out your last days next to the hearth chewing on bones."


To some... It means a complex procedure.



Come on, humans, we have to do better than this -- 1,000 years from now we'll be remembered for this great moral conundrum of open heart surgeries for beloved pets while others have zero access.

[AChimp]

If people in poor countries can't afford the operations, it's their own fault for living in such a shitty country! It's my God-given right to pay for dog surgery!

[MLE]

you know, a dog is a god. backwards and all. so maybe it's a satan given right.

[Jeanette X]

But KK, I thought that you believed that the free market was a good thing, and that it is therefore good that pet owners are willing to pay so much to take care of their property?

Which is it?