Service animals are meant to be able to help accommodate physical tasks. Most animals aren't good for these tasks and there are a few animals that work well fo

Service animals are meant to be able to help accommodate physical tasks. Most animals aren't good for these tasks and there are a few animals that work well for this. Emotional support animals can have a much broader definition because what someone derives emotional support from can vary widely. No one would argue that a turtle is likely to help someone walk down the street. However, emotional attachments could make a turtle emotionally supportive. This is why emotional support animals are such a nebulous category. Some people will argue for registration or notes from doctors. However, that really just means that people with means get what they want (whether they need it or not) while other patients might go lacking. For example, medical marijuana was a way for friends of mine to go to a doctor they knew would prescribe it, pay a little money, and get access to it. A registration system that relied on such a sign-off might similarly be a very small hoop to jump through. Plus, what happens when someone arrives with a fake registration? This isn't even a judgement on that person in particular. Unscrupulous people will create registries that are fake and get people to pay fees and provide them with a print out. This is something that's really hard to get right. Let's say that 99% of people are good people. If you're on a 300 seat plane, the likelihood of at least one crappy person is decent. I think this goes deeper into what we do about the small minority of people who think that anything they do to get what they want is ok. What do we do about the person who thinks, "I'm just running into the store for 5 minutes, I can park in the bike lane"? In that case, it's easy because there isn't a legitimate reason for that behavior. But when there are legitimate reasons, it becomes a lot more difficult. What do we do about the person who thinks, "I won't have to pay to fly my pet if I claim they're treating a psychological issue"? In that case, there's no great answer. Barriers can also harm people who need the animals. Given what I've seen with medical pot, I'm not sure that it would provide a large barrier for people with a little money/privilege. I personally find it angering when people abuse systems set up to help people. I really dislike flying with animals on a plane. At the same time, I'm not sure I could support this rule change. Emotional support isn't the same as physical assistance. It doesn't require the same training or animal types. Maybe we're going to start saying (as a society) that if you need emotional support, you'd better get it from one of the few sanctioned animal types. I think the biggest issue is requiring the same training as physical assistant animals. Service animal training costs a lot of money and that's going to put a large burden on people that might not have that kind of money. What do we do in situations where a small number of people abuse something meant to improve people's lives when there's no great way of discerning who is legitimate in their need and who is abusing it?