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Comment by wisty | Hacker News Reader

There's a difference between getting help, and getting enabled.

People with mental illness often make terrible decisions, but there's a trend to say we have to tolerate these terrible decisions because that's helping them, when it might do the opposite.

OK, so service animals might be effective. But for a non-permanent disability, couldn't travelling without one be a milestone to work towards, rather than an unalienable right? Obviously it depends on individual circumstances, but who should make the call?

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Probably a doctor and not an airline should make the call? It seems like a useful principle that airlines should not be in charge of medical decisions, which would imply that airlines should never question traveling with a horse (besides checking the doctor's authorization) - if we think that someone is being overprescribed a horse, we-as-society should follow up with the prescribing doctor and perhaps medical licensing boards, but we-as-society shouldn't put indirect pressure on the doctor via the patient themselves via a flight attendant.

I agree. I wonder if any doctor has ever been disciplined by a licensing board for his or her substantive judgment in one of these accommodation cases. (That is for an inappropriate decision rather than for some procedural lapse like not doing an examination or something.)

I think it's reasonable for a doctor to prescribe a horse, and it's also reasonable for an airline to not accommodate someone flying with a horse.

More generally, I don't think all of society needs to be forced to accommodate any possible prescription by a doctor.

Sure, that's a reasonable argument, but that's different from the argument of "should we, as society, try to wean people off horses". If airlines want to discourage passengers who need horses for practical reasons / for the good of the airline, that's one thing, and we can discuss what the airline's needs are (and even whether there's a way that the airline would be happy to accommodate it, e.g. with some flights designed for pets or something, which I'm sure a lot of pet owners without medical needs would be delighted to pay for). If they want to discourage those passengers for the alleged good of the passengers, that's quite different.

> I think it's reasonable for a doctor to prescribe a horse

And that's where you and I disagree. This therapy animal business seems to be exploding in popularity, and maybe there's something to it, though it seems too popular too quick to be properly vetted. But even if animals are the ultimate therapy, this idea that any and all animals should now be accepted as therapy is over the top.

My mom is scared of dogs, and I dislike dogs and cats due to their smell, bad owners, and possibility of being attacked by certain breeds (which may or may not be due to bad owners, but that doesn’t matter to me). The physical disability service animals, I was okay with due to it being easy to verify legitimate use and being rare enough. But this ESA nonsense is out of hand, where it’s very easy to make something up or even make yourself believe you need a pet and subject everyone else to it.

I guess my big problem is there’s no standards, and I have no security in knowing that someone sitting inches away from me or my family has an untrained pit bull that they’re claiming is an ESA, and I can’t do anything about it until after the damage is done.

It's unlikely to be a goal for people with a service animal. It takes years and a lot of money to train a service animal - it's not a quick fix.

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