This got me thinking about - what is humane? It's a judgement based on the morals and ethics of a point in time. Hopefully as we evolve, our ideas of what is humane evolve as well. Once the almshouses would have been considered kind, as they gave the insane some shelter, better than living on the street. Then the insane asylums were better again, and even the "treatments" that we consider horrendous now would have been attempts at a cure.

So the real point is - what are we doing now that we think is better, but that future generations will look back at in horror? I think maybe it is the new drive to get people who have mental disabilities (and I'm not including the criminally insane) out of group homes and "back into the community". It sounds like a good thing, but when it means shutting down what has been a person's only home for their entire life and putting them in the community with inadequate support, how humane is that?