The Value of Life

How Much Is Your Dog's Life Worth?
The Wall Street Journal Online
By Sara Schaefer Munoz
Recognizing Pets' Value

Even before the recent pet-food scare, legal experts say there has been a growing legal recognition of pets' value. Today 42 states have made cruelty to animals a felony, compared with seven states that had felony provisions before 1994, according to the Animal Legal Defense Fund.

In 2000, Tennessee created a statute allowing noneconomic damages if a pet is killed or injured by negligence, though caps them at $5,000. And recent civil judgments have nodded to people's emotional attachment to their pets: A default judgment last year in Washington state awarded a man $50,000 for the intrinsic value of his cat, Milton, and an additional $25,000 for emotional distress after Milton was killed by a neighboring dog that had a history of aggressive behavior.

Animal-rights groups say that most animal law is based on a long-ago era when pets didn't have the vaunted role they now enjoy in many households -- and when Americans didn't spend nearly as much money on them. In 2006, Americans spent nearly $39 billion on food, veterinary care, supplies and other services for their pets, up 35% from 2001, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, an industry group in Greenwich, Conn.

Proverbs 12:10 A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.

Yes, I like animals and take care of my little beasties. I like cats more than dogs because they tend to take care of themselves and are more decorative. But what are they worth?

Go down to the animal shelter any day of the week and there you will find potential pets waiting on death row and nobody wants them. You will also find people who are willing to shell out big bucks for their pets: and, of course, a show dog is going to have more value than a mutt, in the same way a Van Gogh will bring a higher price than Sally's paint-by-the-numbers creation. Value is in the eye of the beholder.

But most cats and dogs are a dime-a-dozen. They are not presently endangered species. Indeed, each on is unique and beautiful, "fearfully-made" creations of God.
I understand, though, that in Uruguay cats are hunted and eaten (not much meat on that one, unless it's an American cat).

Even in nature we frequently see scenes of carnage, of animals brutally slaying and eating other critters. Death makes no sense there. A fox hunts down a doe and then gnaws away. Two gorgeous creatures are reduced to the basic, mindless ravages of nature: here today, dead meat tomorrow.

Our thoughts then say: "What are they worth to God?"

We are appalled at death. People who have extremely high value to us suddenly pass away and are no more. Death seems to tell us that life is cheap. A senseless mass murder or a natural disaster snuffs out a crowd of people and we cannot process the meaning of it. We are stunned by it, even fascinated; but in the end we have no explanation, no rationale.

Legal experts may pin a value on a pet. They routinely decide the value of a human life. But what really is the value of it all? The bubonic plagues wiped out people wholesale, indiscriminately. Oddly, then, we have this painful irony in the world around us: people, animals have great value and yet, seemingly, none. Death says we are all toast. It can all vanish in an instant, like Hiroshima.

Does God not think much of this present world? The answer seems to be yes and no.
It is both extremely cheap and utterly valuable. No wonder people can become nihilistic, utterly depressed and suicidal. If they regard the cheapness of life it can seem not worth living.

Life is both meaningless and full of meaning ~ unimportant and very valuable. We can't comprehend it. But most of us feel lucky or blessed to be alive today, if we have food and shelter and are not daily surrounded by war.

Somewhere God made it and declared, "It is very good." And in almost the next breath He said, "It grieves me."

Hebrews 2:5 It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking.
6But there is a place where someone has testified: "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?
7You made him a little[a] lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor
8and put everything under his feet? In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him.
9But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Death is the great leveler. It laughs in the face of all meaning. But man is still made for a glorious future: it just isn't here. Have you blown it in life? Are you despondent? Do you despair of the meaning of it all? Lay your burdens on the one who died for you. He has a life of great meaning to give you. He makes sense of it all. I kid you not.