Euthanasia: Why torture dying people when we have sick animals put down?

Most people would define euthanasia as the deliberate ending of a life by a second person, either by act or omission, on the basis of the second perso n's judgment about the quality of that life. Usually, the life that is term inated cannot be sustained without intensive inpatient medical care, and oc casionally the life is believed to be so burdensome and distressing as to n ot be worth living. These two judgments broadly encompass medical euthanasi a. Ending a life on the basis of political judgment about the quality of th e life in question - that it is too costly or not sufficiently worthy to co ntinue - is social euthanasia. One of the objections to formalising and leg alising the current practice of medical euthanasia is that this recognition will lead to toleration of deliberately ending the lives of members of min ority ethnic or religious groups, the elderly, the psychiatrically disturbe d, or the intellectually disabled - the "slippery slope" argument.