Killing Kira, Letting Tom Go?—An Empirical Study on Intuitions Regarding End-of-Life Decisions in Companion Animals and Humans

SIMPLE SUMMARY: End-of-life decisions present challenges in both human and veterinary medicine. Legally, the options are clearly defined in the respective fields. The legal differences, however, are not necessarily mirrored in personal judgements by different stakeholder groups involved in the decision-making processes. In this study, veterinary and medical professionals as well as a control group of laypersons were asked to choose treatment options in six different fictional end-of-life scenarios for human and for animal patients, differing in age, gender, and, in case of the human patients, in terms of their state of consciousness. Interesting differences and congruencies—within and between stakeholders but also animal and human patients—can be found in the results, especially with regard to the reasons study participants gave for their choices. ABSTRACT: Veterinary and human medicine share the challenges of end-of-life decisions. While there are legal and practical differences, there might be parallels and convergences regarding decision-making criteria and reasoning patterns in the two disciplines. In this online survey, six variants of a fictitious thought experiment aimed at pointing out crucial criteria relevant for decision-making within and across both professional fields. The six variants introduced four human and two animal patients with the same disease but differing in age, gender and, in case of the human patients, in terms of their state of consciousness. Participants could choose between four different treatment options: euthanasia, continuous sedation, a potentially curative treatment with severe side effects and no intervention. Study participants were human and veterinary medical professionals and an additional control group of lay people. Decisions and justifications for the six variants differed but the three groups of participants answered rather homogeneously. Besides the patient’s “suffering” as a main criterion, “age”, “autonomy” and, to a lesser extent, “species” were identified as important criteria for decision-making in all three groups. The unexpected convergences as well as subtle differences in argumentation patterns give rise to more in-depth research in this cross-disciplinary field.