A mild expression used instead of one that is unpleasantly direct. That is a euphemism.

It would appear that our society in general has become one that does not appreciate the unpleasant. The ramifications of this are multifold. As an example, I was speaking to a friend last night who was exceptionally upset after reading that researchers are placing small monkeys in rooms filled with marijuana smoke and, after a certain amount of time, killing them in order to see how the THC in the smoke has affected their brains. I am outraged as well. However, there are approximately 54 billion members of species other than our own who are needlessly murdered (killed intentionally-killed is a euphemism for murdered) for equally stupid and humanly selfish, unnecessary reasons. What of them? Where is the outrage?

Lest the point I am making here be missed, we are living in a time that appreciates euphemism. No, thrives on it. Is placated by it. Retains its comfort zone and expands it to everything that would ruin our comfort and unbalance our blindness and deafness. We do not want to suffer in any way or to any degree. It's unpleasant to say the least. So we euphemise.

Killing is always killing. We can spin the action but it does nothing to justify the action, except in our collective consciousness. The counterspin is that it (the killing for whatever reason) had to be done. It was, or is, the lesser of two evils. The truth of the matter is that we have done precious little, if anything, to prevent the necessity of choosing between the lesser of the two. Both spin and counterspin contain portions of the truth, but are not the truth itself. Killing is all ways killing.

The truth is that, when we are confronted by the unpleasant, we find it necessary to shield ourselves and/or our actions or lack thereof. We spin and counterspin. Both are euphemisms which evade the real truth; which prevent our psyche's from experiencing the unpleasant reality of our involvement; which shield us from the unpleasantly direct.

We killed them because we did not want to exert the effort or spend the money required to keep them alive and happy. We killed them because it was either them or us. We killed them because we have been taught that the meat really tastes wonderful. We killed them because we are more important than any other living being. We killed them!

Perhaps we just euthanized them?