“We are talking about euthanizing the animals”
Five Days at Memorial“We are talking about euthanizing the animals” is an expression associated with comments by Susan Mulderick during the crisis at Memorial. Its significance lies in the gap between the meaning she said she intended and the possibility, raised by people close to her, that others interpreted the contrast as bearing on the treatment of human patients.
Attribution and Dispute
In 2009, speaking through her attorney, Mulderick told the author that she had not used the word “euthanasia” with regard to human beings. She also said that none of her statements at Memorial had been intended as “code for” euthanizing patients. The account therefore does not establish that the expression was a deliberate instruction to hasten patients’ deaths.
Some people close to Mulderick offered a different explanation for how the remarks might have acquired that meaning: they theorized that her comments contrasting the treatment of animals with that of humans could have been misconstrued and perhaps acted upon by others in ways she had not intended. The expression consequently marks an unresolved distinction between a speaker’s stated intent and the possible effects of language in a crisis, without resolving what particular listeners understood or did.
