Ethics, then.

Um, maybe a bit off topic but, if you look closely enough, you can see a distant connection to us.

True story. I should know; it's mine. Sort of. Well, I'm involved. Okay?

I bought an aquarium. I washed it, rinsed it, de-chlorinated some tap water, put in some (thoroughly) rinsed aquarium sand and some plastic plants, a heater, a super-sized filter, and a wonderful blue-white light. Got some fish. A couple neon tetras, two (stupidly expensive but pretty) guppies, and three cheapie guppies.

(Cutting to the chase scene...)

One cheapie guppy died from natural causes, I guess. Later, one expensive (male? female?) guppy might have been raped and killed by his (male? female?) partner. (Long story.)

Now, the point of all this: one cheapie guppy is... ridiculously... bent. Not sure how to describe the poor fellow. Floating upright, he looks like the lower case "c"; he's curled sideways (not up and down). And that's being generous. Handicapped? Disfigured? I forget the word. Anyway, the guy still lives. Not sure exactly how he is doing it, but it's painful to watch him come out for feeding time. He does eat, though. Apparently. A funny looking squiggle, a flip upside down, flopping onto his side and faces up to try to catch something floating. It seems to work for him somehow.

So, this one day I found that expensive dead guppy on the sand doing a good job of being dead. There, about half an aquarium away, was the poor bent fellow, also dead on the sand. Well, I thought to myself, that doesn't surprise me. I grabbed the infamous small aquarium fish net and proceeded to have a quick, unemotional funeral for the, perhaps used-to-be gay, very dead expensive guppy. Good bye. Then, back at the aquarium again, I went to pick up the poor dead bent cheapie only to see that he was not where I last saw him. Water current moved him? Other fish ate him?

Then, after searching the entire aquarium over several times, I found him, dead in one of the plastic plants. It had to be the currents, eh?

I put the tiny fishnet in and scooped him up, ready for a sad goodbye.

Then, he swam away. The little bent fellow was not dead. He was resting. And, quite obviously, very irritated that I kept bothering him in his death pose.

Tenacious little thing, eh?

Now, to my question. Ethics, and all. He obviously is disfigured. Perhaps it's difficult for him to eat and get around. He looks physically so bad. Should I euthanize him? Should I allow him to continue to survive?

What's the right thing to do? I mean, if I'm going to be his god, how should I answer his prayers? What are his prayers?

What is ethical about me giving pleasure to a little girl? What is not ethical. (No, I'm not discussing the laws or how right or wrong they can be. What is right and wrong?)