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Should Doctors Assist Executions?

By TChris, Section Death Penalty
Posted on Fri Feb 17, 2006 at 05:52:29 AM EST
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by TChris

Physicians aren't supposed to harm their patients. Is it ethical for a physician to help the government kill a prisoner?

A plan for California to use an anesthesiologist to monitor the chemically induced demise of a condemned killer has ignited concerns that doctors have no business assisting executions. ... "Physicians are healers, not executioners," the national anesthesiology group said in a statement Wednesday. "The doctor-patient relationship depends upon the inviolate principle that a doctor uses his or her medical expertise only for the benefit of patients."

Drugs used in California executions "can cause excruciating pain, in violation of the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment." A federal judge reviewing evidence of prior executions isn't convinced that inmates are rendered unconscious before they experience any pain. During the scheduled execution of Michael Morales on Tuesday, the judge wants California "to allow an anesthesiologist to observe and examine the inmate during the execution." That ruling has triggered a debate about using a doctor to assist the death of a healthy man.

The American Civil Liberties Union distributed a statement by Dr. Jonathan I. Groner, a surgery professor at the Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health, who likened the approach to the role of doctors in Nazi Germany.

"An anesthesiologist who enters the death chamber is clearly violating national and internationally established medical ethics," he wrote in a statement. "Not since Nazi physicians supervised the killing of mentally and physically disabled individuals ... have high-ranking physicians become so intimately involved in state-sponsored killing."

University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan said involving a physician in an execution smacks of an attempt by the state to legitimize a controversial law enforcement tactic.

"There aren't many Western countries that have the death penalty, and there is a strong current in our society to do away with it," Caplan said. "You don't want it to seem more barbaric than it has to be. Having someone in a white coat nearby helps moot the moral criticisms made against you."

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    Should Doctors Assist Executions? | 20 comments (20 topical)
    Re: Should Doctors Assist Executions? (none / 0) (#1)
    by kdog on Fri Feb 17, 2006 at 06:36:58 AM EST
    I would think it kind of clashes with the oath..."do no harm" and all that.

    Re: Should Doctors Assist Executions? (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Feb 17, 2006 at 07:05:05 AM EST
    Let's ask a different question. Would it be okay to have a scientific investigation to see only if death by injection (or electricution) results in cruel amounts of pain. Not to assist, just to take data. If so, would it be okay for a doctor to take part in such a study, and if so, to take part in the death chamber, or only outside (by designing, advising, analyzing the data?) I am against the death penalty. And I am definitely against Nazi style medical experimentation. I am also against clueless courts making crap up on their own. But then too, I am against phoney baloney junk science stinking up those clueless courts making crap up on their own. (Bad divorce legal experiences, what can I say?)

    Re: Should Doctors Assist Executions? (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Feb 17, 2006 at 07:17:38 AM EST
    Then how can I be in favor of assisted suicide? As someone who is pro death penalty and pro assisted suicide I am confused by the logic. Someone, seriously, help figure this out.

    Re: Should Doctors Assist Executions? (none / 0) (#4)
    by owenz on Fri Feb 17, 2006 at 07:56:39 AM EST
    This is stupid. How is monitoring or easing the pain of a patient inconsistent with the Hypocratic Oath? After all, what's the real issue here? Inmates may be suffering excrutiating pain during executions. What role would the anesthesiologist play? Evaluate that pain - and possibly treat it. The inmate sure as heck won't have a problem with this. And if the inmate doesn't have a problem, who