https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine
On 10 October 1789, physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposed to the National Assembly that capital punishment always take the form of decapitation "by means of a simple mechanism."[7]
Sensing the growing discontent, Louis XVI banned the use of the breaking wheel.[8] In 1791, as the French Revolution progressed, the National Assembly researched a new method to be used on all condemned people regardless of class, consistent with the idea that the purpose of capital punishment was simply to end life rather than to inflict pain.[8]
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no doctors needed, no collapsed veins to be found, no drugs to expire, no agonized struggles, and best of all, many organs are preserved for harvesting
On 10 October 1789, physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposed to the National Assembly that capital punishment always take the form of decapitation "by means of a simple mechanism."[7]
Sensing the growing discontent, Louis XVI banned the use of the breaking wheel.[8] In 1791, as the French Revolution progressed, the National Assembly researched a new method to be used on all condemned people regardless of class, consistent with the idea that the purpose of capital punishment was simply to end life rather than to inflict pain.[8]
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no doctors needed, no collapsed veins to be found, no drugs to expire, no agonized struggles, and best of all, many organs are preserved for harvesting
Dr. Jauhar has the right to his opinion, but it is an unfortunate one. What he is basically saying is that Drs, should make sure executions are safe, that suffering is mitigated. Of course, the outcome is the same. The state still ends up killing a person. The participating Dr. Ends up enabling the execution which would otherwise involve needless suffering.
It is the enabling that is the problem. The A.M.A. is right to prohibit the participation of Drs. in executions. Withholding such participation may hasten the end of state executions. Without the participation of medical staff, execution by injection quickly morphs into cruel and unusual punishment.
No, Dr. Jauhar, your profession needs to stay out of the process, rather than helping to make a more effective killing machine.
Rev. Dr. Arthur Mills
It is the enabling that is the problem. The A.M.A. is right to prohibit the participation of Drs. in executions. Withholding such participation may hasten the end of state executions. Without the participation of medical staff, execution by injection quickly morphs into cruel and unusual punishment.
No, Dr. Jauhar, your profession needs to stay out of the process, rather than helping to make a more effective killing machine.
Rev. Dr. Arthur Mills
35
No one should participate in state sanctioned murder.
38
To all Christians: would Jesus advocate or defend the death penalty? To take someone's life is immoral and unethical. It is anything but okay. This does not even mandate a long and deep discussion, it is very obvious to most countries on earth today. Punishing a crime is testimony to our moral immaturity as a nation. In that respect we still play in history's sandbox together with many other nations, many of which we categorize as "developing nations". Canada, Australia, all of Europe (incl. Turkey), and many other countries on the globe have abolished the death penalty or at least have not practiced it in a long time. One future day we in America will ask ourselves why we were not able to lift ourselves to a higher moral ground earlier.
To justify taking a prisoner's life because the death-inducing drugs are expiring is completely devoid of any morals – it is cruel, an act of barbarisms and of cold, capitalist-style calculation.
To see that supreme court justice Gorsuch helped justifying the recent execution in Arkansas should not surprise anyone. After all he was put into office by bending the rules of the senate.
To justify taking a prisoner's life because the death-inducing drugs are expiring is completely devoid of any morals – it is cruel, an act of barbarisms and of cold, capitalist-style calculation.
To see that supreme court justice Gorsuch helped justifying the recent execution in Arkansas should not surprise anyone. After all he was put into office by bending the rules of the senate.
17
In more than a few instances of post-execution evidence reevaluation or discovery proved the executed person to have been innocent. Should the physician involved (if there were physician involvement) in any of those wrongful deaths consider his or her actions to be consistent with "do no harm?"
Moreover, should any of the persons involved in any of those wrongful executions consider the implications of having participated in a deliberate killing of a human being who should have walked free?
Poisoning, gassing, shooting, hanging, when the dead person turns out to be innocent, how does one live with the knowledge that he or she participated in a State-approved murder of someone who actually "did no harm?"
Moreover, should any of the persons involved in any of those wrongful executions consider the implications of having participated in a deliberate killing of a human being who should have walked free?
Poisoning, gassing, shooting, hanging, when the dead person turns out to be innocent, how does one live with the knowledge that he or she participated in a State-approved murder of someone who actually "did no harm?"
21
Would the logic of "alleviate suffering" as a test for participation in executions be the same used by doctors in Nazi Germany, and doubtless other government regimes as well? Was it what drove the medical experiments on the Tuskegee Airmen? We need a much stronger moral and ethical thread to run through those with whom we entrust our health and lives. There are far too many who want to justify the heartless, soulless positions government and businesses take.
19
The use of midazolam as an execution drug has been controversial to say the least. From the standpoint of a anesthesiologist, its choice in a lethal cocktail was founded on sheer ignorance of the clinical use of the drug. Midazolam (Versed) is a benzodiazepine which provides anxiolysis and perhaps sedation and is very widely used as a preoperative adjuvant. It is however subject to tolerance with chronic use and to cross tolerance with other benzos. One would suspect most death row inmates are on Xanax or valium, etc and therefore the likelihood of ineffectiveness is extremely high.
When Versed was first introduced into clinical practice in the US, it was not marketed as an anxiolytic, but rather it was sold as an induction agent, in other words as a deep sleep-inducing drug like thiopental and propofol, in other words, just what the executioners are trying to do. In clinical practice in 1983 this application failed miserably and anesthesiologists know this. My own personal anecdote involved a certain well known young lady from Hollywood who I was assigned to anesthetize as a resident anesthesiologist. My attending thought we ought to try the new drug and I administered the recommended dose of 30 mg. My patient sat up on the operating table and started telling us bad, off-color jokes. I turned to my attending and said "Nobody can resist the "Big Syringe" (thiopental)" and injected it, the patient promptly fell asleep and surgery proceeded. Turns out, she was on valium.
When Versed was first introduced into clinical practice in the US, it was not marketed as an anxiolytic, but rather it was sold as an induction agent, in other words as a deep sleep-inducing drug like thiopental and propofol, in other words, just what the executioners are trying to do. In clinical practice in 1983 this application failed miserably and anesthesiologists know this. My own personal anecdote involved a certain well known young lady from Hollywood who I was assigned to anesthetize as a resident anesthesiologist. My attending thought we ought to try the new drug and I administered the recommended dose of 30 mg. My patient sat up on the operating table and started telling us bad, off-color jokes. I turned to my attending and said "Nobody can resist the "Big Syringe" (thiopental)" and injected it, the patient promptly fell asleep and surgery proceeded. Turns out, she was on valium.
11
With this logic, doctors should have collaborated in finding a less painful way to kill people during for the countless atrocities that history has produced. That would have decreased a lot of the suffering, and assured that the procedure would have met the highest technical medical standards.
Even for terminally ill people contemplating euthanasia where it is allowed, there is a multitude of hurdles in order to have it conform to the Hippocratic oath. Enabling an execution may not make the doctor the executioner, but it does make him an accomplice in a killing.
Even for terminally ill people contemplating euthanasia where it is allowed, there is a multitude of hurdles in order to have it conform to the Hippocratic oath. Enabling an execution may not make the doctor the executioner, but it does make him an accomplice in a killing.
15
I'm presuming the author didn't intend for the following to be in jest, yet here we are: "The execution procedure therefore requires the insertion of catheters, controlled injection of lethal drugs and monitoring of a prisoner’s vital signs to confirm death. This makes it important that a doctor be present to assist in some capacity with the killing." Unless the author has been out of clinical practice for 20+ years, NONE of those ancillary processes are carried out by physicians in routine clinical practice. Damn, I'm confident I wouldn't get 20% of current medical students to correctly take a manual blood pressure, heaven forbid I should ask them to gain IV access on a long-term IV drug abuser. And inject drugs, lethal or otherwise? C'mon man. You've described skills that are all better handled by skilled nurses. Don't even get me started on the "duty to alleviate suffering". But, alas, this is The Opinion Page of the NYT. Sometimes those opinions are in err. Full disclosure, I don't think the AMA's position is holier-than-thow either. But if executions are viewed to be legal, at least have qualified people do the killing.
8
I am an Anesthesiologist and I am an expert in providing safe comfortable anesthesia. Those 2 adjectives are both essential to the care that I provide. Providing lethal anesthesia for a government penal system violates my oath. It also creates a slippery slope that helps rationalize capital punishment as a comfortable way to execute someone. There may be hospice end of life situations where my expertise may be useful but that is an entirely different problem. In that case the primary goal is comfort and sometimes that hastens a natural death to relieve pain and suffering. This is a medical issue because a full understanding of the disease process is required before ever starting this type care. Being condemned by the state is not a lethal disease. Doctors should not be involved unless they are asked to address the post traumatic stress disorders of the routine participants of capital punishment,
24
What's the big deal? The Hippocratic prohibition of abortion has been disregarded. Why should 'Do no harm' cause concern? Anyway, I think the firing squad has a lot more dignity and honesty to it.
4
There is something deeply hypocritical about society's willingness to execute a person and at the same be concerned about their comfort during the execution. You can't hide behind the so-called dignity of the process, or assuage your conscience by pretending that you're protecting against pain and suffering. Do they deserve death? Fine, then rip them limb from limb and feel good about it. That is what your society really wants.
You are either all in or all out on execution. There is no middle ground.
You are either all in or all out on execution. There is no middle ground.
17
A lot of doctors don't seem to have any problem with the execution of obscenely high medical costs and ordering of unnecessary and expensive tests and procedures that gravely harm patients as well, so why should they for prison executions? Why is no doctor pleading for absolution from those as well? Selective conscience?
6
The "undue suffering" Doctor, is not the "brutality" of the execution process. That process itself, and all its attendant and necessary components, is the "brutality". By disingenuously compartmentalizing the role of the physician to one aspect of the whole, the writer cleverly seeks to avoid any moral responsibility for actively participating in the successful accomplishment of that process, I.e. state killing. The "executioner" is not limited to the faceless correctional employee who "flipped the switch" at the end of the execution process. To compare mortal physical disease to state killing is false and morally repugnant. Please limit your presence to the examining room sir, not the execution chamber.
9
As a physician, I am opposed to participating in executions...and I abhor the death penalty. However, there is no a priori reason why executions need to be pain free. The desire to "put prisoners to sleep" rather than have death by hanging for example, is just serving to distance us all from the reality of the death penalty. The public cannot have it both ways.......
14
The situation of assisted suicide and execution have lot in common.
In both situations death in imminent and the physician is asked to help in reducing the suffering. If one is purist in opposing physician helping with the execution they should be equally indignant about assisted suicide. After all it is killing someone before their time has come. In some instances patients with a few years of life expectancy are dispatched in assisted suicide. If you stretch this terminal weaning would be unethical too.
In both situations death in imminent and the physician is asked to help in reducing the suffering. If one is purist in opposing physician helping with the execution they should be equally indignant about assisted suicide. After all it is killing someone before their time has come. In some instances patients with a few years of life expectancy are dispatched in assisted suicide. If you stretch this terminal weaning would be unethical too.
2
I don't understand what would compel a fellow doctor to write that a death sentence is the same as a terminal illness. Doctors should have nothing to do with executions.
17
Using your own frame of reference, Doctor, physicians should also be present and participate in torture, in order to "alleviate undue suffering." No thank you - physicians should play no role in capital punishment, as it violates their Hippocratic Oath, and any conceivable interpretation of their mandates as physicians. Rather than dwell upon the "practical," how about reaching for the overarching moral imperatives here? Capital punishment is barbaric, it has placed this nation in the ranks of the worst human rights nations on earth, and it serves no purpose as a crime deterrent. Physicians should not be in the business of enabling the "eye for an eye" vengeance crowd. 4/22, 10:40 AM
9
Executions that go well encourage more executions. The potential easing of suffering by doctors encourages assembly line killing. "Do no harm" in this case is not aiding the killers. Easing the potential suffering of the condemned does great harm to others whose heads are not yet on the block.
4
No, it is not ok.
For thousands of years, clans, tribes, states, nations and all manner of governments have been sanctioning death upon another human being. The vast majority have been for triviial and unjust reasons. What makes our reasoning any better?
This country has the means to end this barbarity. Having doctors join in the "spectacle" is not a path to that means.
For thousands of years, clans, tribes, states, nations and all manner of governments have been sanctioning death upon another human being. The vast majority have been for triviial and unjust reasons. What makes our reasoning any better?
This country has the means to end this barbarity. Having doctors join in the "spectacle" is not a path to that means.
10
Who is the evaluator of suffering.
Is a patient suffering from cancer more deserving of a painless, accepted, legal death than a young bipolar mother now an addict? She sees her mental illness is destroying her beloved children. And finally in desperation chooses suicide. No Doctor would have supported her suffering. Whom else is just as trapped in a dead end illness?
The prisoners on death row?
Someone suffering from unrelenting depression?
Chronic pain?
A prolonged grief?
Who does the value judgement on suffering? Humans do not have the wisdom to deal out another's death wisely. If a person wants to take their life that is their private business. Doctors should not be involved. It gives suicide an air of legitimacy that is ultimately destructive for our society.
Is a patient suffering from cancer more deserving of a painless, accepted, legal death than a young bipolar mother now an addict? She sees her mental illness is destroying her beloved children. And finally in desperation chooses suicide. No Doctor would have supported her suffering. Whom else is just as trapped in a dead end illness?
The prisoners on death row?
Someone suffering from unrelenting depression?
Chronic pain?
A prolonged grief?
Who does the value judgement on suffering? Humans do not have the wisdom to deal out another's death wisely. If a person wants to take their life that is their private business. Doctors should not be involved. It gives suicide an air of legitimacy that is ultimately destructive for our society.
3
The idea of a painless execution is self-deceptive nonsense. This is like Colorado's governor Hickenlooper who won't sign a death warrant because he doesn't believe in it, but won't commute the death sentence because it is bad politics: complete evasion of responsibility. If the government is going to kill, immediately give a pistol to the prosecutor who argued so vehemently for the death sentence and have him/her shoot the victim in the back of the head immediately on live TV in the courtroom, in front of the judge and jury who collaborated in the sentence. It would be painless and the true perpetrators would not be able to deny what they have done.
10
This is faulty logic. By the same logic when in Iran they literally do an eye for eye for a person who blinded another one is doing compassionate work. Or when in Saudi they cut the thiefs fingers a hand surgeon would be most qualified to do it. How about giving preanesthetisa antibiotics to make the act even more compassionate. The fact that doctors participate in these in humane acts does not make this more humane. Ridiculous argument.
5
Given that science demonstrates that punishment is ineffective unless it is "cruel and unusual" there is little case to be made for painless execution. If the point of execution is to punish by example then there is little case to be made for painless execution. If the point of execution is to remove a danger from society, there are other ways to do that. There is NO place for a doctor as executioner, no way for ANY executioner to avoid a moral injury unless that executioner is to some degree sociopathic. We can do better.
3
"Participating in executions does not make the doctor the executioner, just as providing comfort care to a terminally ill patient does not make the doctor the bearer of the disease."
I'm sure more ridiculous things have been written, but this one is up there.
People are dying every day from Oxcontin/Oxycodone overdoses. I'm surprised the manufacturers of those drugs haven't gotten into the execution business. After all, they have "field tested" it for efficacy and they have no conscience about selling it and making money.
I'm sure more ridiculous things have been written, but this one is up there.
People are dying every day from Oxcontin/Oxycodone overdoses. I'm surprised the manufacturers of those drugs haven't gotten into the execution business. After all, they have "field tested" it for efficacy and they have no conscience about selling it and making money.
6
First and foremost, let me state that I am totally against capital punishment. But what I desire is totally irrelevant to the State - at least for now. However as an Anesthesiologist it boggles my mind about the execution protocol. The drugs and especially the sequence of drugs used and their purpose in the execution are so wrong. Why has midazolam replaced pentothal sodium. Midazolam is used to sedate and reduce the great fear and extreme anxiety of the patient. Pentothal is a hypnotic inducing total unconsciousness, which should then be followed muscle-paralyzing drug like pancuronium ( way longer-acting than vecuronium ). The patient stops breathing without distress, followed by KCL which stops the heart. Of course, monitor the patient till the EKG flat-lines. It goes without saying the dosages are at lethal levels, not therapeutic. If Capital Punishment which is absolutely inhumane, has come to stay, why not a humane, merciful, comfortable pathway to death and total oblivion? All the botched executions are horrendous. Perhaps, it maybe better than death by hanging or the electric chair. But a botched execution is no better. Even my pets when they had to be euthanized at the end of their lives were more comfortable and peaceful. And for chrissake(!) why not a fellow human? The simple answer to all this misery, heartache and guilt is, just get rid of Capital Punishment!!
10
Reliable DNA testing has been around for around 30 years. In that time, dozens of death row inmates have been exonerated. That should disturb everyone greatly.
11
Agreed. It objectively demonstrates that a system that allows for the execution of the innocent is an unjust one. A justice system that is unjust cannot be allowed to execute anyone. Only when the system can guarantee that no innocent person will ever be executed can that system make an argument for execution.
9
Not only should physicians abstain from executions, but ALL medical professions should. We need to make it as difficult as possible to execute people so it will stop. Someone is required at electrocutions to pronounce the victim, too. If states indulge in such barbaric methods, perhaps the Supreme Court will finally ban execution.
13
Amputations are acceptable as well. Physician participation will prevent infections and suffering.
1
One of the least convincing and most morally bankrupt opinion I have ever read in the NYT.
17
Participation=acceptance=support. A doctors presence at an execution is used to give a fig-leafs worth of civilization to a completely savage event. The doctor is there to calm the moral quandries of the executioners, not to care for a patient. If you're comfortable being misused that way, by all means go ahead. But don't try and convince the rest of us that it's anything less than the horror it is.
12
wrong, wrong, wrong. above all do no harm. everything else is justification. if someone brings a dying patient to you, treat him
but to lend yourself to the process, making it seem like a medical procedure is a bastardization of your oath.
but to lend yourself to the process, making it seem like a medical procedure is a bastardization of your oath.
9
The guillotine is the answer, swift and sure with no pain, it can be made so fast there would be no reaction, and no MD need be present!
1
That would be wrong, Honor. During the French revolution a condemned man promised to blink his eyes as many times as possible after the blade fell. There, head in the basket, he blinked 17 times. I doubt it was fast or painless.
2
This man was executed for a murder that occurred 20 years ago. That is the travesty of our legal system. And to compound the ridiculousness, the justification is that they are running out of legal drugs. My faith, which was never high......... in our political and legal system, just took another dive.
5
Assuming anyone should participate in an execution.
7
It is interesting then that many states, countries that allowed doctor assisted suicide of persons never convicted of anything, are somehow also opposed to the death penalty for some seriously badass folks.
Was this all discussed in the free will philosophy class I never attended, I wonder.
Was this all discussed in the free will philosophy class I never attended, I wonder.
3
You will never see a wealthy person on death row.
That's all one needs to consider.
Dr. Jauhar's editorial is an obscenity.
That's all one needs to consider.
Dr. Jauhar's editorial is an obscenity.
32
The rationalizations of a physician who has been corrupted.
The role of a doctor at an execution is not to provide comfort or alleviate suffering. How can a doctor alleviate suffering of a person who is going to be dead by the very actions that inflict the "suffering"? How can a dead person feel the effects of relief from suffering? Are the convicts "suffering" when they are strapped to the table?
The doctors are the executioners. It doesn't take a medical education to kill. The medical education is supposed to train a person to avoid killing. But the reality is different. Doctors inflict suffering on a daily basis in hospitals and clinics and they kill too. So-called medical error is the third leading cause of death in America. Those people suffer much more than state execution boards allow in their death chambers.
The role of a doctor at an execution is not to provide comfort or alleviate suffering. How can a doctor alleviate suffering of a person who is going to be dead by the very actions that inflict the "suffering"? How can a dead person feel the effects of relief from suffering? Are the convicts "suffering" when they are strapped to the table?
The doctors are the executioners. It doesn't take a medical education to kill. The medical education is supposed to train a person to avoid killing. But the reality is different. Doctors inflict suffering on a daily basis in hospitals and clinics and they kill too. So-called medical error is the third leading cause of death in America. Those people suffer much more than state execution boards allow in their death chambers.
4
insane argument
11
Simple answer for Arkansas: just behead them. No physician or messy drugs needed.
3
Yes, in other times and places doctors who participated in killing people also elaborated their justifications. Some were tried in Nuremberg for it.
Since then almost all nations have abolished the death penalty. In many, including Germany, the U. S. are reviled for maintaining it.
What I don't understand - the NYT editorial staff giving space to these "arguments."
Since then almost all nations have abolished the death penalty. In many, including Germany, the U. S. are reviled for maintaining it.
What I don't understand - the NYT editorial staff giving space to these "arguments."
11
Whoa, there is a lot of rationalization & preaching going on in this "paper" this morning.
1st there is the article about thousands of jobs lost in Sales, but "blaming technology is misdirected".
And now if doctors are allowed to participate in Executions they will "help alleviate Suffering".
Sure, you just report the news.
1st there is the article about thousands of jobs lost in Sales, but "blaming technology is misdirected".
And now if doctors are allowed to participate in Executions they will "help alleviate Suffering".
Sure, you just report the news.
1
Sounds like rationalizing to me.
4
You are causing suffering to prevent suffering. Tragic irony that the lies we tell ourselves our the greatest sources of our own suffering.
8
no, its NOT ok
there are no people on earth better at rationalization than americans
8
Once again, this columnist swings and misses with an outdated perspective on health care. Physicians are the last providers in the hospital you seek to place an IV.
8
"Do no harm" It's that simple...
6
Slippery slope to physician participation in evil. See web references to the classic New England Journal of Medicine paper: Medical Science Under Dictatorship, by Leo Alexander, MD.
And when your physician comes to your bedside, how will you know if it is the healer or the executioner?
And when your physician comes to your bedside, how will you know if it is the healer or the executioner?
6
What an elaborate, intelligent, carefully articulated rationalization.
1
The USA’s legitimate ‘Death Panel’ is an obscenity, and it is even more so when the freedom to use euthanasia by the medical community is outlawed.
2
You, sir, are just flat wrong. State sponsored murder is still murder. Your participation in this barbarous act does not make it less so. Arguing that states will kill anyway, we can't stop it, is cowardly. The fact is, luckily, there is a slow, halting movement in our country, one of the few left on earth that still murders prisoners, to end capital punishment. That end will come sooner when influential voices like those of physicians roundly and unanimously condemn this immoral practice, rather than find excuses to support it.
I urge you to stand up and be counted as among the many opponents of capital punishment.
I urge you to stand up and be counted as among the many opponents of capital punishment.
6
Look, people, doctors have no other choice but to soften the blow. I mean, if a future government wants to set up death camps for Muslims, say, all good doctors must make sure there's lots of dramamine on the trains -- I mean, someone could become nauseated, after all! And let's make sure they have comfy cushions, too, and that it's warm inside the "showers." Perhaps pipe in some light jazz -- and why not dose 'em all up with MDMA, too? They'll go much more gently into that good night that way.
Hey, I'm just here to reduce harm, after all. I'm just being consistent. What, you want these people to suffer unduly as they're wiped out? Let's think more positively about what we can do to help! Cover the floors of the "showers" with memory foam -- just in case someone survives the initial blast and is aware of hitting the floor. We wouldn't want them to be unduly upset, let alone get a bruise.
Hey, I'm just here to reduce harm, after all. I'm just being consistent. What, you want these people to suffer unduly as they're wiped out? Let's think more positively about what we can do to help! Cover the floors of the "showers" with memory foam -- just in case someone survives the initial blast and is aware of hitting the floor. We wouldn't want them to be unduly upset, let alone get a bruise.
8
Doctor, Why don't you just buy a .45 caliber revolver and just shoot the condemned in the head? Suffering is minimized, for sure. That, of course, is an obscenity, as is the death penalty itself, but is the moral equivalent of what you advocate. But your thinking is even worse: lending the hallowed aegis of the medical establishment to the disgusting and benighted practice of the state-sponsored execution.
8
This self serving article leaves unanswered the most important question. Just how much does an American doctor get paid to kill a human?
9
It is completely unethical for a physician to assist in a state sponsored execution. Thomas Smith, MD
13
Spin, no matter what you call it
6
In a word, NO!
6
You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.
5
Dr Jauhar, it must be comforting to know that you will have a guaranteed job waiting for you after your current patients have run for the hills.
9
Hmm. Maybe the physicians at Dachau and other concentration camps did not have a charge to avoid death; they merely had a charge to alleviate suffering on the part of the executed without worrying about the wrongfully acting nation? Seems to me that this reasoning invites a very light and spurious interpretation of medical ethics, no?
9
This article has several problems. Ancient ethic doctrine proclaims that physicians may not kill. This is in the oldest oath that we physicians take when we complete medical school. It is not just by happenstance that this is some arbitrary edict. There a sound basis for this tenent. First of all the duty of a physician is to promote life and to heal the patient.
There is no course that teaches a physician how to a kill a patient. there for anybody participating in this morally wrong state decree which kills a number of innocent people every year is just guessing as to any help they can give the so-called "patient".
so, participation in a state sanctioned killing goes against the purpose of being a physician and it violates their oath. I might add that the Nazis doctors participated in the state sanctioned killings and it was deemed politically correct.
The concept about not killing your patient is actually a deep one, because it assumes that you have a doctor patient relationship or that you have some kind of medical relationship with a patient. With capital punishment physician does not have a doctor patient relationship and therefore , Is like a stranger on the street doing something to some random person. It just so happens the random person selected is been put to death and you as a bystander the physician have no stake in this and obviously somebody's paying you to do this.
There is no course that teaches a physician how to a kill a patient. there for anybody participating in this morally wrong state decree which kills a number of innocent people every year is just guessing as to any help they can give the so-called "patient".
so, participation in a state sanctioned killing goes against the purpose of being a physician and it violates their oath. I might add that the Nazis doctors participated in the state sanctioned killings and it was deemed politically correct.
The concept about not killing your patient is actually a deep one, because it assumes that you have a doctor patient relationship or that you have some kind of medical relationship with a patient. With capital punishment physician does not have a doctor patient relationship and therefore , Is like a stranger on the street doing something to some random person. It just so happens the random person selected is been put to death and you as a bystander the physician have no stake in this and obviously somebody's paying you to do this.
4
Guillotine is the least painful method. But oh, it is so gross for all of the people who want to watch.
I'm a doctor and I object to physician assisted executions. There is a different between providing comfort to a person who is dying and terminating the life of a physically healthy individual. There is a line and this crosses it and as a physician I will not take this action.
6
It's the death penalty that is not very "practical." It happens at random, except for the fact that its application depends a great deal on the shade of one's skin and what jurisdiction it's in. It costs far more to carry out this hit-or-miss process of social revenge advanced by certain elements of our political class than it does to humanely house offenders for life.
It serves no real purpose other than to hold out the prospect of political advantage to certain elements who will violate the norms of decent society in the supposed effort to "protect" it. There is no possibility of balancing that sort of shoddy political grandstanding against the well-defined standards of ethical conduct time-tested by physicians over many centuries.
The best protection against botched executions is to simply avoid this kind of disreputable logic that feeds the belief of a few pandering politicians that they have any practical effect on crime.
It serves no real purpose other than to hold out the prospect of political advantage to certain elements who will violate the norms of decent society in the supposed effort to "protect" it. There is no possibility of balancing that sort of shoddy political grandstanding against the well-defined standards of ethical conduct time-tested by physicians over many centuries.
The best protection against botched executions is to simply avoid this kind of disreputable logic that feeds the belief of a few pandering politicians that they have any practical effect on crime.
8
Dry Jauhar writes from the perspective of a cardiologist who has written a best selling book in which he confesses that he worked in a Cariology practice where his boss found that "practicing ethical medicine did not pay the bills." He gave lectures for pharmaceutical companies that produced medications that he prescribed that had known safety problems. As a practicing Emergency PhysicianI I sympathize with his conundrum. However, the role of a physician assisting the state in killing a defenseless prisoner cannot be justified. It is contrary to everything that we learned and should be practicing. Then there is the issue that he might actually be assisting in the death of an innocent individual based on what we have learned of the criminal justice system. If he finds that the state may cause excess suffering in the manner in which it kills people, let that burden fall on the state to rectify. In the meantime, he would do far better to advocate for the practice of scientific and cost effective medicine and work to unveil the problems with insurance and pharmaceutical industries and inappropriate medical practice all of which he noted in his book as the best way to relieve patient suffering.
7
"The A.M.A.’s position is principled and respects a long history of bioethics in this country. However, it is not practical."
Principled but "not practical"? Really? We wouldn't want to be impractical, would we?
I'm on the side of principled.
Principled but "not practical"? Really? We wouldn't want to be impractical, would we?
I'm on the side of principled.
8
Im afraid that whilst well argued, the fundamental premise is a cop out. There is no difference to assisting at an execution and assisting with torture of another kind, or any other form of "doing harm". The argument that "its going to happen anyway" doesn't hold. The more difficult we make it for the state to kill someone the more likely the US will decide killing criminals is just too hard. Peak medical bodies should sue states who use drugs "off license" to deliberately kill, remove the licenses of doctors, nurses and paramedics who assist with murder, and encourage members to take a stand against a fundamental insult to our professions. Im not sure there is really any grey area here, and the writer does a disservice to the profession to argue otherwise.
6
As a physician I have helped people suffering from intractable pain with IV pain medication. I know we have the ability to end life quickly and painlessly with medication, although I do not propose that my profession be involved with executions. My veterinarian ended my suffering dog's life painlessly but he does not participate in executions either. If capital punishment is legitimate and useful than do it but without doctors.
2
The author describes the A.M.A.'s position as "principled" but "not practical." Decency and ethical conduct are often impractical. They are also required in order to stand against and eventually change that which is wrong in our society.
5
This is appallingly illogical. The AMA's position is principled and consistent with a physician's oath. To say that it is not practical is silly; being "at odds" with the penal system is the point of taking such a position. Drug manufacturers have taken a similar stand, preventing the use of their products in lethal injections and forcing states to import their killing drugs from overseas. Would Dr. Jauhar tell them that their position is pointless, and that they might as well allow their products to be used to kill, because executions are going to happen anyway? He seems to suggest that we acquiesce in the face of injustice.
Despite what's happening in Arkansas, opposition to the death penalty is having an effect. The number of executions in the U.S. has dropped sharply in recent years. The more grotesque capital punishment is shown to be, the more uncomfortable judges, legislators and the general public become with it. The absence of doctors from executions is one factor in that discomfort.
Sadly, that stupid tax-reform column by Laffer, Kudlow, et al., that ran a few days ago is now merely the second-worst op-ed of the week.
Despite what's happening in Arkansas, opposition to the death penalty is having an effect. The number of executions in the U.S. has dropped sharply in recent years. The more grotesque capital punishment is shown to be, the more uncomfortable judges, legislators and the general public become with it. The absence of doctors from executions is one factor in that discomfort.
Sadly, that stupid tax-reform column by Laffer, Kudlow, et al., that ran a few days ago is now merely the second-worst op-ed of the week.
6
Dr. Jauhar's postulate - that physicians are providing "palliative" care - is not only ludicrous and obscene as one commenter described it, but disturbingly cruel as well. It reveals an amorality that I find chilling. The assertion that it is important that a doctor be present to assist in performing the mechanical aspects of execution - insertion of an intravenous catheter, infusion of medications, and monitoring of vital signs - is stunningly incorrect. These are all functions that can be performed by a number of trained medical personnel, including advanced practice nurses such as CRNAs, physician assistants, or even medical students nearing graduation. Not having taken the Hippocratic Oath, none of these would be in violation of its mandate to do no harm. Of course, Dr Jauhar should have made the argument that only anesthesiologists should be present as sedating a patient to the point of unconsciousness and then paralyzing them is a routine part of their practice. The obvious difference is that anesthesiologists, once having done those things, then maintain their patients life during surgery. Finally, Dr Jauhar fails to acknowledge the very real possibility - given the utterly capricious way the death penalty in this country is administered - that the condemned may be a victim of a miscarriage of justice, or beyond that, innocent. Physicians should not participate in capital punishment and beyond that should be completely opposed to it. Shame on you, Dr. Jauhar.
9
Just as the US military has a designation for medical personnel to be actively involved in combat, treating the wounded, as conscientious objectors (one of two C.O. designations granted by the DoD), so it should be looked at, in the same way, with execution. Not involved in the actual killing, not condoning what is gong on, but there out of ethical mandate, to observe, consult if needed -- or take over to relieve undue suffering, medically. But, still within the ethical stance of the AMA on not being involved in the actual execution (that being a justice or law enforcement personnel).
It is quite possible by doing it this way, indeed, better arguments can be made against state executions by medical professionals.
It is quite possible by doing it this way, indeed, better arguments can be made against state executions by medical professionals.
As an anesthesiologist and critical care physician, count me out.
I dont agree that it is "ok" for doctors to participate in executions.
There have been far too many executions of convicted people who have been found to be in fact innocent (unfortunately after the execution) and too many near misses (people on death row for crimes actually committed by someone else). Capital punishment doesn't deter the crimes it is meant to prevent, and in my opinion is state sanctioned brutality.
I dont agree that it is "ok" for doctors to participate in executions.
There have been far too many executions of convicted people who have been found to be in fact innocent (unfortunately after the execution) and too many near misses (people on death row for crimes actually committed by someone else). Capital punishment doesn't deter the crimes it is meant to prevent, and in my opinion is state sanctioned brutality.
10
Breathtakingly bad argument. Dr. Jauhar misses the point that that the penal system and the medical system should be at odds on this issues. His piece leads me to two practical conclusions: All medical professional associations, not the the AMA but the one for nurses, for EMTs, etc, should adopt the rule that their members must not participate in executions. Medical education is failing us by turning out technicians instead of humane care givers.
8
Sorry, that rationalization doesn't work. The people who are to be executed are not suffering before the injection or any other means of killing them. The primary responsibility of doctors is to "first, do no harm."
You fail Ethics 101.
You fail Ethics 101.
6
If the United States is going to continue in the business of execution --and there are several profound reasons why it should go the way of debtor's prison, slavery, male-only vote franchise-- then we clearly need a special profession of medical executioners. We all know that in daily situations doctors make the subjective and covert choice to alleviate suffering at the expense of prolonged life; these are complicated situations, require personal decisions, and are not cases of imposing death upon unwilling patients. The logic behind it is "do no harm," though the meaning of that phrase is itself subjective. Legitimating doctor's roles in executions is like legitimating their role in torture --forget why they are there, just think about how much worse it would be if they were not there. No. That isn't a professional principle. Doctors cannot be in the business of facilitating death, particularly not on state order. Dr. Jauhar should stop looking for permission to be complicit in state sins and start taking professional ethics seriously.
6
I think people are missing the point of this editorial. The issue isn't whether execution is or is not morally justified, or whether our laws are acceptable or outdated. The fact is that the death penalty is legal and executions do occur.
Dr. Jauhar gave his own opinion (... I oppose capital punishment ...), yet many readers responded as though he wishes to be head executioner. That's unfair. Perhaps a better approach is to write to your representatives and give them your opinion. Then, we can all hope they will listen.
Dr. Jauhar gave his own opinion (... I oppose capital punishment ...), yet many readers responded as though he wishes to be head executioner. That's unfair. Perhaps a better approach is to write to your representatives and give them your opinion. Then, we can all hope they will listen.
If they cannot find a doctor willing to violate his oath, the conclusion should be no execution.
6
to continue my above comment. The logic behind the premise that the physician can help best in giving these injections is wrong. If physicians didn't participate at all then it would become even more obvious that this is a cruel punishment. Participation adds to the validity of the capital procedure. Haviing a physician does not guarantee that is not going to be a painful and prolonged event. The opposition to the death penalty from the drug manufacturers has made it more difficult for the US to execute prisoners. and the reason is that this is they are morally against it.
1
The execution of a human being is still murder. An so ironic that that the writer thinks a medical degree and a lab coat shield him from admitting it.
If the reasoning Dr. Jauhar were correct, then, on the same logic, physicians could morally participate in state killings for the purpose of eliminating political opponents or members of a certain race or religious belief. When viewed in that light, his reasoning is nonsensical.
What does it mean when he says "I oppose capital punishment as a matter of principle"? I suggest that, rather than violate his principles, he and others like him, could find enough suffering to alleviate 24/7, without aiding and abetting state-mandated homicide.
What does it mean when he says "I oppose capital punishment as a matter of principle"? I suggest that, rather than violate his principles, he and others like him, could find enough suffering to alleviate 24/7, without aiding and abetting state-mandated homicide.
2
I will not participate in an execution. I don't look to the AMA for ethical guidance, but into my own heart. I am a physician, a healer. I try to hold myself to the standard set by Maimononides. Part of the physician's prayer of Maimonides is
" Preserve the strength of my body and of my soul that they ever be ready to cheerfully help and support rich and poor, good and bad, enemy as well as friend."
I will not willingly take a life, certainly not from someone who does not wish to die, not even a life judged despicable by a jury of my peers.
" Preserve the strength of my body and of my soul that they ever be ready to cheerfully help and support rich and poor, good and bad, enemy as well as friend."
I will not willingly take a life, certainly not from someone who does not wish to die, not even a life judged despicable by a jury of my peers.
2
The combination of high profile death row cases getting overturned and all health care workers (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc.) refusing to participate in executions would be a massive blow to the death penalty. The former has already reduced executions precipitously, and the latter will continue to reduce the number of executions and states that allow it. Dr. Juahar fails to see how alleviating the suffering of one prisoner sets the stage for the suffering of future death row inmates. Dr. Juahar also fails to see how healthcare professionals, particularly doctors, are in a unique and respected position to help change a policy that violates their Hippocratic oath.
2
Dr. Jauhar makes some serious leaps of logic and spurious analogies with statements such as:
"It is not a stretch to think of death-row inmates who have exhausted their appeals as having a terminal disease with 100 percent mortality"
and:
"Participating in executions does not make the doctor the executioner, just as providing comfort care to a terminally ill patient does not make the doctor the bearer of the disease"
An argument based upon such illogical and absurd claims undermines its own credibility. Dr. Jauhar ties his argument in knots to avoid confronting the glaring absence of patient consent.
"It is not a stretch to think of death-row inmates who have exhausted their appeals as having a terminal disease with 100 percent mortality"
and:
"Participating in executions does not make the doctor the executioner, just as providing comfort care to a terminally ill patient does not make the doctor the bearer of the disease"
An argument based upon such illogical and absurd claims undermines its own credibility. Dr. Jauhar ties his argument in knots to avoid confronting the glaring absence of patient consent.
4
Sorry, but I agree with the AMA. Participating in executions is a perversion of the physician's oath, just as the participation of psychologists in the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" is a perversion of their profession.
6
But the suffering begins with with a conscious, intended, plan to kill and the M.D. is present to make sure that plan to kill can be fulfilled.
A present, participating M.D. validates and makes OK, the state sanctioned killing plan.
The M.D. might be there alleviating suffering, but the M.D.'s presence adds legitimacy to the killing and I'm not sure that's defensible.
A present, participating M.D. validates and makes OK, the state sanctioned killing plan.
The M.D. might be there alleviating suffering, but the M.D.'s presence adds legitimacy to the killing and I'm not sure that's defensible.
2
It is NOT O.K. for physicians to participate in executions. It is not just counter to an oath we swore to uphold at our medical school graduation, but it is the bedrock foundation of how we are to treat patients as we go through our professional lives. To believe otherwise is to find pseudo-ethical reasons to permit us to behave immorally, which is what you have chosen to do. Don't seek piety by excusing your actions for "alleviating suffering".
5
In my opinion, he makes a valid argument.
But it doesn't do a thing to make the dealth penalty any fairer, or righter. If it's wrong, it's wrong, whether or not you choose to participate in order to "alleviate" the suffering the prisoner will undergo.
Thus even if the argument is valid, it's not of sufficient weight to counter all of the extremely weighty arguments against the death penalty. If the death penalty is wrong - which I believe it is - then participating in the procedure is wrong, and that's a far stronger argument than alleviating the prisoner's suffering.
Sorry, doc, not buying it.
Lately I've been thinking - reading about the situation in Arkansas, and the rush to execute a whole bunch of people before the drug expires!! - that the decades-long appeals process, sometimes accompanied by multiple right-up-to-the-last-minute delays and "stays," is itself a form of cruel and unusual punishment.
But it doesn't do a thing to make the dealth penalty any fairer, or righter. If it's wrong, it's wrong, whether or not you choose to participate in order to "alleviate" the suffering the prisoner will undergo.
Thus even if the argument is valid, it's not of sufficient weight to counter all of the extremely weighty arguments against the death penalty. If the death penalty is wrong - which I believe it is - then participating in the procedure is wrong, and that's a far stronger argument than alleviating the prisoner's suffering.
Sorry, doc, not buying it.
Lately I've been thinking - reading about the situation in Arkansas, and the rush to execute a whole bunch of people before the drug expires!! - that the decades-long appeals process, sometimes accompanied by multiple right-up-to-the-last-minute delays and "stays," is itself a form of cruel and unusual punishment.
NO, it is never okay for doctors to participate in state sanctioned murder. It goes against everything to which they supposedly swear an oath.
3
No, doctor. We are the only industrialized country still committed to this atrocious practice and you want to be there to "help"? This is blind physician arrogance.
The AMA's position is correct, but we should pressure the AMA to use its influence to lobby more for outlawing capital punishment (do no harm) and less for dubious acts like the appointment of Tom Price.
The AMA's position is correct, but we should pressure the AMA to use its influence to lobby more for outlawing capital punishment (do no harm) and less for dubious acts like the appointment of Tom Price.
2
“Discouraging physician participation…will not lead to a ban on capital punishment…it will lead only to the reinstatement of more brutal forms of execution…”
Lethal injection is the fig leaf that allows our society to believe that what we’re doing isn’t cruel and brutal. If communities are going to believe in the death penalty then make them strip away all the falsehoods and face it in its bloody reality. Bring back the firing squad, remove the head cover, and don’t use a blank bullet so that each of the executioners can believe that maybe their gun didn’t contribute to the killing. If we went back to the basics maybe more people would recognize the death penalty for the brutality that it really is.
Lethal injection is the fig leaf that allows our society to believe that what we’re doing isn’t cruel and brutal. If communities are going to believe in the death penalty then make them strip away all the falsehoods and face it in its bloody reality. Bring back the firing squad, remove the head cover, and don’t use a blank bullet so that each of the executioners can believe that maybe their gun didn’t contribute to the killing. If we went back to the basics maybe more people would recognize the death penalty for the brutality that it really is.
I am a doctor. The thought of administering lethal drugs to a "patient"--to be an executioner--is anathema to everything my profession stands for and means for me. The essence of the doctor-patient relationship is a partnership for the betterment of the patient's health. And if you are administering drugs to someone, that person IS your patient. As trite as is sounds, Dr. Jauhar, we DID take an oath, and "do no harm" is something we all swore to.
6
According to the author's website, his undergraduate degree is in experimental physics. Then off to medical school the young and precocious Sandeep went.
Perhaps this op ed piece is evidence that physicians should have undergraduate training in something other than the hard sciences.
Any medical ethics professor will tell you that this argument that Sandeep offers for participation in judicial executions is flawed. But, in Sandeep's mind, steeped at an early age in hard science, the "logic" of such participation is crucial to alleviate suffering.
If Sandeep were a physician in 1930s Germany, would he condone physician assistance in alleviating suffering in the gassing of prisoners in places like Auschwitz?
Perhaps this op ed piece is evidence that physicians should have undergraduate training in something other than the hard sciences.
Any medical ethics professor will tell you that this argument that Sandeep offers for participation in judicial executions is flawed. But, in Sandeep's mind, steeped at an early age in hard science, the "logic" of such participation is crucial to alleviate suffering.
If Sandeep were a physician in 1930s Germany, would he condone physician assistance in alleviating suffering in the gassing of prisoners in places like Auschwitz?
8
The claim that a physician assisted execution is consistent with the Hippocratic oath, to alleviate suffering, is purely one of convenience to alleviate one's own complicity in such a death. I don't care if you, or some other physician, chooses to participate; just dont use your oath as an excuse.
1
Why then don't U.S. doctors support Medicare for ALL to alleviate suffering?
2
"Doctors can act as a safeguard against this brutality."
If executions are recognized as a "brutality", any position short of banning them condones or is complicity to that 'brutality."
If executions are recognized as a "brutality", any position short of banning them condones or is complicity to that 'brutality."
7
This betrayal of medical ethics is simply a revolting rationalization of a grisly and inhumane act. Decapitation created less risk of causing suffering. So did firing squads. Neither requires physician assistance.
Obviously, I oppose capital punishment. Physician participation, something that enables killing by lethal injection, simply makes it easier for states to kill people. Some states will kill their citizens. That does not justify participation in the process for anyone, least of all doctors.
Obviously, I oppose capital punishment. Physician participation, something that enables killing by lethal injection, simply makes it easier for states to kill people. Some states will kill their citizens. That does not justify participation in the process for anyone, least of all doctors.
2
Our own government had medical personnel participating in the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo. Do no harm? Hypocrisy rules. End of story.
1
Why is it required that a doctor "assist" at a public murder? Just in case they get sick...right before they die? But, then why, in most states, are doctors not permitted to proscribe the necessary pills for the terminally ill to take their own lives.
To me, this seems a little like wearing a tux to a bordello, in order to lend a little class. And, I agree that orchestrating a mass run-up toe the death bed is disingenuous if, for no other reason than the expiration or quantity were running out!
https://thetruthoncommonsense.com
To me, this seems a little like wearing a tux to a bordello, in order to lend a little class. And, I agree that orchestrating a mass run-up toe the death bed is disingenuous if, for no other reason than the expiration or quantity were running out!
https://thetruthoncommonsense.com
Unless they are using gallons of it, I don't think midazolam is a strong enough sedative to avoid horrible suffering from the other 2 drugs.
The big problem is using medical means in the first place. Prisoners should be executed using physical violence such as by firign squad, electrocution, hanging, etc. One method, notrogen asphyxia, is very humane. It is used by veterinarians.
"He is at work on a cultural, personal and scientific history of the human heart" - my head is in a spin with anticipation! BTW, has there been full disclosure here, eg., has the doctor or a relation or a family member ever financially benefited in any fashion by complicity with the State killing apparatus? This should have been disclosed prominently (whether yes or no) in this appalling OpEd. Further, the least to expect if MDs were to participate in what many would regard as a cruel,inhuman, unethical practice, the minimum to expect is that the MD participation to "alleviate human suffering" be done without accepting any financial compensation. Fat chance!
I have no problem with doctors participating. Just publish their names.
2
First, do no harm.
How hard is that to understand, Dr. Jauhar?
How hard is that to understand, Dr. Jauhar?
1
Simply stated, as long as M.D.s participate in the death penalty travesty the death penalty will continue. If doctors refuse to participate then the advocates of the death penalty will be forced to change the law to allow non-doctors to participate. Once the medieval-thinking proponents of the death penalty are unmasked, how long to you think this foolish and wasteful barbarity will continue?
4
I think that all the efforts to make an execution look like a medical procedure are completely misguided.
You're killing somebody. And although we don't know for sure (since everyone who would know is dead), there's some evidence that the condemned suffers with a lethal injection just like they do other methods of execution. So the only reason we use lethal injection rather than a guillotine is to convince juries and judges that we aren't being cruel when we sentence people to death.
You're killing somebody. And although we don't know for sure (since everyone who would know is dead), there's some evidence that the condemned suffers with a lethal injection just like they do other methods of execution. So the only reason we use lethal injection rather than a guillotine is to convince juries and judges that we aren't being cruel when we sentence people to death.
16
We disagree with the Nazis but we'll make sure your extermination in the gas chamber is painless.
18
As long as the death penalty is legal, it should be done in a way that brings the fastest end and the least discomfort. The arguments as to its merit, while associated, are a different issue.
And as long as we are on the subject, peripherally perhaps, what about assisted suicide? Is it not torture to keep a person "alive" and suffering because it can be done?
And as long as we are on the subject, peripherally perhaps, what about assisted suicide? Is it not torture to keep a person "alive" and suffering because it can be done?
1
This article says more about the doctor's arrogance than it does about some non-existent "moral quandary." He thinks that doctors are better executioners than other medical professionals, based on absolutely no evidence. He seems to feel so strongly that we should do what we can to alleviate suffering - I wonder how he would feel about teaching our medical students how exactly they should kill a healthy person "humanely."
A perfect illustration of how evil becomes banal in the mind of an executioner.
54
What is NOT OK is the premise. The death penalty is barbarian and should be ousted from the face of the earth. I feel offended when I read people elaborating defensive messages based on the branches and not on the main issue.
Ask Frank Artiles.
Ask Frank Artiles.
8
This is a joke, right? It was supposed to run April 1, but got misplaced, right? Right? This guy is pretending to be a Stephen Colbert-type character who expresses outrageous reactionary beliefs in order to get a laugh from the crowd. Right?
18
Apparently the good doctor believes in doctor assisted suicide for those who can no longer do it themselves. Doc, if you want to get your name in the paper, go feed the hungry!
"a doctor administered the injection at Mr. Lockett’s execution"
+
"But it is hard to believe there would be more chance of a botched injection or inadequate anesthesia if medically qualified personnel were present."
=?
No one other than an MD would ever think a doctor has a better shot at starting an IV line than a paramedic or EMT, as a floor nurse in a hospital, I can assure you, you want the paramedic or EMT. The entire op-ed reeks of arrogance. The case the doctor sites as a failure is the one in which a physician was present. Is there any indication that the presence of a physician prevented suffering? The presence of a doctor is just an attempt to make the process look like something other than the racist, barbaric practice that it is.
+
"But it is hard to believe there would be more chance of a botched injection or inadequate anesthesia if medically qualified personnel were present."
=?
No one other than an MD would ever think a doctor has a better shot at starting an IV line than a paramedic or EMT, as a floor nurse in a hospital, I can assure you, you want the paramedic or EMT. The entire op-ed reeks of arrogance. The case the doctor sites as a failure is the one in which a physician was present. Is there any indication that the presence of a physician prevented suffering? The presence of a doctor is just an attempt to make the process look like something other than the racist, barbaric practice that it is.
14
Reading these procedures says so much about who we are as a nation. How could you pretend to be that city on the hill or morning in America or even great, when you have state bureaucracies working on the efficient killing of individuals. How do you wake up in the morning contemplating the problem of how to execute x number of individuals before you drug supply expires. How do judges continue to rule that these procedures are not cruel and unusual. We are seeing Hannah Arendt's banality of evil played out in Arkansas.
19
Perhaps we need the suffering to be visible, the agony to show in order to stop killing people. Making it clean and sanitized only makes it easier to ignore what we are really doing. I've long believed that life in prison without parole is the harsher sentence (as evidenced by the Hernandez suicide).
6
That we're even having such a conversation in a civilized country in the 21st century is deplorable. Abolish it.
16
Dr. Jauhar: I can say categorically that I would NEVER want you to treat me or any of my family. And I can say that about ANY doctor who advocates for the death penalty or is willing to help execute people.
"First: Do no harm" is about as fundamental as an oath can be.
Too many people take oaths or make affirmations and immediately begin to violate them, starting with the current President, who SWORE to uphold and defend the Constitution yet was immediately violating it, and hasn't stopped.
I am not a religious man, so it is not out of fear of divine retribution that I keep my oaths. It is out of respect for myself to NEVER make a promise I cannot or will not keep. I have NEVER made a promise to my children I couldn't keep--so I make few promises as they are unbreakable.
As a teenager, I hesitated to get a Senior Life Saving certification until I was certain I was willing to accept the responsibility that entailed. When I was 13 or 14, my older brother had pulled a man out of the water and administered CPR and artificial respiration for a half-hour only to learn the man was already dead. That made it very clear and very real what I would be vowing to do...and I needed to believe I was ready for it.
I suggest you re-evaluate not just your Hippocratic Oath, but what making an oath or affirmation REALLY means.
"First: Do no harm" is about as fundamental as an oath can be.
Too many people take oaths or make affirmations and immediately begin to violate them, starting with the current President, who SWORE to uphold and defend the Constitution yet was immediately violating it, and hasn't stopped.
I am not a religious man, so it is not out of fear of divine retribution that I keep my oaths. It is out of respect for myself to NEVER make a promise I cannot or will not keep. I have NEVER made a promise to my children I couldn't keep--so I make few promises as they are unbreakable.
As a teenager, I hesitated to get a Senior Life Saving certification until I was certain I was willing to accept the responsibility that entailed. When I was 13 or 14, my older brother had pulled a man out of the water and administered CPR and artificial respiration for a half-hour only to learn the man was already dead. That made it very clear and very real what I would be vowing to do...and I needed to believe I was ready for it.
I suggest you re-evaluate not just your Hippocratic Oath, but what making an oath or affirmation REALLY means.
16
The psychologists association censured some of it's members for participating in US government sponsored torture. How is this different?
1
“Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resigns his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.”
― Henry David Thoreau,
If you oppose executions then why would you participate at all? It is a barbaric practice by society, it is murder for the wrongly convicted, and it is not a deterrent to the guilty; or as Timothy McVeigh said, "Death is not a penalty, it is an escape." There is no valid rationalization for participating in this act.
― Henry David Thoreau,
If you oppose executions then why would you participate at all? It is a barbaric practice by society, it is murder for the wrongly convicted, and it is not a deterrent to the guilty; or as Timothy McVeigh said, "Death is not a penalty, it is an escape." There is no valid rationalization for participating in this act.
10
Lethal injection, like electrocution, is unnecessarily cruel. If you MUST have executions, use explosives, which are messy but absolutely humane.
1
>I disagree with this view. Though I oppose capital punishment as a matter of principle, as a doctor I believe physician presence at executions is consistent with our mandate to alleviate suffering.
***Well, if physicians weren't present to perform the execution, there wouldn't be any suffering to begin with. And what about the Lord's Commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill?'
While the Bible also says 'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth,' we know that in this country there are people on death row whose guilt is questionable because of an inadequate defense in the face of those who want a conviction merely to further their own ends, doesn't matter who they convict.
So, does the doctor performing the execution know for sure that the person they're executing actually did the crime? The law may tell them so, but then again they may be unwitting participants in a charade.
Sorry, but the doctors who assist at executions are no different than the doctors who performed atrocities under Hitler, their excuse being they are performing in accordance with the law under Hitler.
Doctors, stick to healing.
***Well, if physicians weren't present to perform the execution, there wouldn't be any suffering to begin with. And what about the Lord's Commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill?'
While the Bible also says 'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth,' we know that in this country there are people on death row whose guilt is questionable because of an inadequate defense in the face of those who want a conviction merely to further their own ends, doesn't matter who they convict.
So, does the doctor performing the execution know for sure that the person they're executing actually did the crime? The law may tell them so, but then again they may be unwitting participants in a charade.
Sorry, but the doctors who assist at executions are no different than the doctors who performed atrocities under Hitler, their excuse being they are performing in accordance with the law under Hitler.
Doctors, stick to healing.
6
As a physician myself, let me say that I would regard any other physician who participates in state-ordered killing as the scum of the earth and someone who should be shunned by the medical profession.
23
Since Dr. Jauhar agrees with the A.M.A. that capital punishment is wrong, to participate in it "to alleviate suffering" is simply collaboration, and not in a good way.
I've been watching the French series The Village, about French individuals collaborating with the Nazi's in order to achieve better--no, not as bad--outcomes. In one episode the mayor selects 10 innocent individuals to be shot by the Germans in retaliation for a German soldier who was shot. The mayor does this because otherwise the Germans will shoot 20 people. He does this stomach-turning act to save 10 lives. In other episodes, the city leaders help the Germans round up the foreign Jews in order to protect their native born Jews. A Jewisd maid of the mayor tells him that however well intentioned, he should have just said no.
The series makes clear that such collaboration with evil is wrong, even if there are mitigating reasons, like public order. The same is true for doctors and executions. And not just for doctors.
I've been watching the French series The Village, about French individuals collaborating with the Nazi's in order to achieve better--no, not as bad--outcomes. In one episode the mayor selects 10 innocent individuals to be shot by the Germans in retaliation for a German soldier who was shot. The mayor does this because otherwise the Germans will shoot 20 people. He does this stomach-turning act to save 10 lives. In other episodes, the city leaders help the Germans round up the foreign Jews in order to protect their native born Jews. A Jewisd maid of the mayor tells him that however well intentioned, he should have just said no.
The series makes clear that such collaboration with evil is wrong, even if there are mitigating reasons, like public order. The same is true for doctors and executions. And not just for doctors.
2
A reasonable opinion on a subject which will no doubt draw many unreasonable, emotional replies.
Except that state-sponsored executions are wrong at every level.
5
I don't agree. Your enabling an unnatural death. It only justifies the killing whether the person is innocent or not. Do you do that to your patients as well?
4
No.
4
Assad is an M. D. as,well. 2 peas in a pod.
7
Didn't Hitler have doctors who were doing "medical research" in hopes of advancing medical knowledge. I am sure they felt they were advancing knowledge that would eventually improve knowledge about the functioning of the human body therefore alleviating suffering.
Of course some of them just hated Jews and felt Russian prisoners were worse than lice and rates.
By the same logic, the Bible says "thou shalt not kill". We know you can rummage through the Bible to find support for beating your wife, murdering "disobedient" children, slavery and so forth. But "thou shalt not kill" is pretty straight forward. Yet Christians operated concentration camps and still participate in executions.
So why do we think there is compassion and morality in the Bible.
Of course some of them just hated Jews and felt Russian prisoners were worse than lice and rates.
By the same logic, the Bible says "thou shalt not kill". We know you can rummage through the Bible to find support for beating your wife, murdering "disobedient" children, slavery and so forth. But "thou shalt not kill" is pretty straight forward. Yet Christians operated concentration camps and still participate in executions.
So why do we think there is compassion and morality in the Bible.
5
First you kill them...THEN? you alleviate any suffering?
Let's see what God actually did:
God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."…
Uh. Excuse me but...where does it say that God has to kill them?
Let's see what God actually did:
God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."…
Uh. Excuse me but...where does it say that God has to kill them?
Excuse me, but ... why DOES "God" kill them, then? Because nothing can happen without "God"'s will, right? And how would anyone know what "God" "thinks" or "said" or "did"? Do you have a direct hot line to "God"?
2
I understand what you're saying.....but no matter the rationalization, the minute you don your scrubs and grab your medical bag and step into the chamber, you are helping to kill a man. You're de facto complicit.
If a bunch of thugs grabbed a person and began to abuse them, would you say "hold my beer while I get that poor man a Tylenol"?
I didn't think so.
If a bunch of thugs grabbed a person and began to abuse them, would you say "hold my beer while I get that poor man a Tylenol"?
I didn't think so.
1
Administering deathly poison is ok if it is done "safely"? You must be nowhere near that death chamber if you want to be called Doctor.
Participating does, indeed, make you the executioner.
Participating does, indeed, make you the executioner.
Coming to the Opinion Section next week:"Why Doctors Should Be Present At Waterboardings" by another MD with no moral center.
20
They already tried that.
1
Besides ethically wrong, the argument presented is illogical. Perhaps this editorial is an attempt by the physician to add a publication to his C.V.
1
You have got to be kidding! So, when a doctor makes sure that a victim of the holocaust does not suffer when entering the gas chambers, everything is fine? It is not because you alleviate suffering that a morally wrong cause becomes right.
3
What a what an awful rationalization!
4
Whenever an article title begins with "Why It's Ok (to do something) I know it will be a psychological projection of the author's mind. Instead of trying to convince us doctor, why not go look in the mirror and ask yourself why are you really assisting death row executions? You are not ok with it on some level, hence this article.
4
Nope.
"Primum non nocere"
1
For shame.
1
Patients must consent to treatment...your stance is ludicrous.
10
Oh come on now. If a Muslim doctor in the US decided he or she was going to 'participate' in female genital mutilations "to alleviate suffering," would that be "O.K"?
"Well, they were going to kill him anyway, so..."
Well, they were going to torture him anyway, so..."
Well, they were going to kill his whole family anyway, so..."
And so on.
Well, they were going to torture him anyway, so..."
Well, they were going to kill his whole family anyway, so..."
And so on.
3
Rationalization on steroids.
4
What verdict would you vote for in a tribunal where an SS officer pleaded not guilty for helping concentration camp victims die humanely?
6
Firstly, I don't believe State legislators don't intend for the condemned to suffer. They do. You have to look at the mindless fools that inhabit State legislative halls. They're not exactly the best of the best. They want people to "pay for" their crimes. And they succeed.
Secondly, there are two completely separate issues at play. Have these people done something so evil and outrageous that they deserve to die is one. Whether the state should kill, with all the uncertainty and expense involved, is another.
If you are not willing to carry out the execution yourself you shouldn't be pro death penalty. Don't pussy foot around it, don't hire professionals to do it-do it. Have a jury pool for executioners. If you are chosen, you do the executions. I'm sure you wouldn't have a problem finding executioners.
At least it would stop the hypocracy that surround the death penalty. But hypocracy has never bothered many.
Thall shalt not kill...except
Secondly, there are two completely separate issues at play. Have these people done something so evil and outrageous that they deserve to die is one. Whether the state should kill, with all the uncertainty and expense involved, is another.
If you are not willing to carry out the execution yourself you shouldn't be pro death penalty. Don't pussy foot around it, don't hire professionals to do it-do it. Have a jury pool for executioners. If you are chosen, you do the executions. I'm sure you wouldn't have a problem finding executioners.
At least it would stop the hypocracy that surround the death penalty. But hypocracy has never bothered many.
Thall shalt not kill...except
Horrifying convoluted argument.
4
Why would the Times print such nonsense. Killing another human being is always wrong. Regardless of who does it.
2
No problem doc, we Republicans, who never met an execution we didn't like, have got your back. Just ignore those pantywaist, politically correct liberals at the American Medical Association.
I neglected to add: [sarcasm alert] at the end of the post.
To argue that a doctor be present at executions to avoid suffering shows some highly dubious logic. If the AMA is opposed to the death penalty, 'discouraging physician participation' is an ineffectual stance to take. I'd hope to see the AMA show the courage to present a more principled position in line with their oath to 'do no harm'.
7
The easiest way to avoid the suffering doctor, would be to live up to your oath and moral obligation and "Do no harm." If a state requires a doctor be present and administer the death cocktail, so be it. If no doctor consents to participate, there will then be no execution. Problem solved.
5
If you logically believe what you are selling that Drs are reducing suffering by assisting the state with the death penalty then all Drs should be supporters of women's right to choose. What can cause more suffering than the women attempting to obtain abortion and finding out that Drs have remained silent on all the legislative obstacles and outlawing of abortion as well Presidential candidate Trump calling for imprisoning women who have had an abortion.
3
This essay is an object lesson in psychological rationalization and moral compromise. The author uses an excessive focus on insignificant aspects of "comfort" in the process of killing to lose sight of the fact that he's justifying the basic moral imperative of medicine to Do No Harm. Were one to follow this line of sophistry, what's next: doctors' participation in torture in Guantanamo? In research on non-consenting minority subjects as happened in Tuskegee? In organ harvesting from prisoners in China? The great tracts of medical ethics, from Hippocrates and Maimonides to the Nuremberg Code of 1948, set morally clear lines that are useful to keep in mind when sophistry begins to cloud moral judgment in the way demonstrated in this essay.
1
The rationale of "alleviating suffering" is really flimsy. As others have noted; this same reasoning could be used as an excuse to side-step ethical/morals concerns to participate in a multitude of inhumanities. Would Dr. Jauhar travel to rural Pakistan to preside over the stoning of a rape victim in a heroic attempt to alleviate the victim's suffering?
If no doctors were available to participate in lethal injections, states would be forced to revert back to more "classically barbaric" methods like shootings and hangings. These methods are less palatable to the general public, and in theory at least, may lead to a reduction in the practice of executions overall.
If no doctors were available to participate in lethal injections, states would be forced to revert back to more "classically barbaric" methods like shootings and hangings. These methods are less palatable to the general public, and in theory at least, may lead to a reduction in the practice of executions overall.
7
"Why It’s O.K. for Doctors to Participate in Executions"
Please, spare the homily.
Eye for an Eye is grotesque.
Evil + Evil doesn't equal Godly.
Please, spare the homily.
Eye for an Eye is grotesque.
Evil + Evil doesn't equal Godly.
Veterinarians very seldom will do this with very sick dogs, but is done with a sense of guilt and sadness. To do this from human to human is disgusting.
1
Welcome to the age of Trump.
Which part of "Thou shalt not kill" is it that you don't understand?
As a doctor, I will not participate in executions. Period.
15
Once again, the comments section is more enlightened, rational, informed, and humanistic than the article. Thanks, fellow readers. No, mental gymnastics don't make it OK for me to participate in something that is wrong by rationalizing that it might be even more wrong without my participation.
25
"It's important for a physician to be present at the execution to avoid what happened to Mr. Lockett...
...oh, almost forgot to mention that a physician was present at Mr. Lockett's execution."
...oh, almost forgot to mention that a physician was present at Mr. Lockett's execution."
5
This twisted rationalization reminds me of the Bush-era lawyers who contorted their professional ethics to justify torture. Helping to inject lethal drugs is the furthest thing from a doctor's role. Doctor Jauhar, you're executing your professional standing.
3
I am totally opposed to the death penalty. But, that said, I don't understand why people about to be executed aren't offered a handful of pills that will make them unconscious before they are killed. No conscioiusness, no pain...
It would not be suicide because the pills would not have a lethal effect. I would rather have my head cut off by a guillotine than be executed in the way described in this opinion piece. And I hope I never find myself in the hands of this creepy MD for any procedure.
It would not be suicide because the pills would not have a lethal effect. I would rather have my head cut off by a guillotine than be executed in the way described in this opinion piece. And I hope I never find myself in the hands of this creepy MD for any procedure.
1
No, doctors must not lend legitimacy to state sponsored murder. The argument by this author is perilously close to, "I was just following orders."
9
After many years of support for capital punishment, I no longer believe it is OK for ANYONE to participate in executions.
Ok so if doctor participate in this to alleviate human suffering then why the especially Republican rally against doctor assisted suicide for the terminally ill?
5
Great piece met with the standard, hypocritical liberal outrage..
Doctors attended years of medical school, worked 24 to 48 hours a day during residency- they know life death and suffering. If they want to be present during an execution- let their personal and professional conscience be the deciding factor. The liberal's view on the abortion issue has always been, "Let the woman choose." Why can't liberals grant the same latitude and let the physician decide?
Doctors attended years of medical school, worked 24 to 48 hours a day during residency- they know life death and suffering. If they want to be present during an execution- let their personal and professional conscience be the deciding factor. The liberal's view on the abortion issue has always been, "Let the woman choose." Why can't liberals grant the same latitude and let the physician decide?
The denigration of liberals by the commenter shows a flagrant disregard for a conservative value of choosing for oneself. The comparison of execution participation to a woman choosing abortion similarly denigrates women who are following that conservative value.
The idea that a doctor choosing to participate is the equivalent of allowing a woman to choose abortion misses the idea of the impact of individual choice. Allowing a woman to choose what happens to her own body embraces conservative values that people should be able to make determinations for themselves about own being. Choosing to legally abort is a deeply personal decision about one own's body and, for it to be legal in our country, a non-viable fetus or a fetus whose further growth would cause her great harm.
A physician choosing to participate in a state run execution, even with the justification of trying to insure the state action goes as planned (not properly since this is an off label use of the drug and therefore there is no properly in this case), is not choosing an action that impacts their own person. It most certainly has its greatest impact on another, their death.
An execution should be most brutal, within the limitation of not being cruel or unusual (not answering if that is possible), so that it fulfills the goals of the activity- punishment and deterrence - and reminds the country that killing, even if justified as punishment, is a terrible action that should be feared and avoided.
The idea that a doctor choosing to participate is the equivalent of allowing a woman to choose abortion misses the idea of the impact of individual choice. Allowing a woman to choose what happens to her own body embraces conservative values that people should be able to make determinations for themselves about own being. Choosing to legally abort is a deeply personal decision about one own's body and, for it to be legal in our country, a non-viable fetus or a fetus whose further growth would cause her great harm.
A physician choosing to participate in a state run execution, even with the justification of trying to insure the state action goes as planned (not properly since this is an off label use of the drug and therefore there is no properly in this case), is not choosing an action that impacts their own person. It most certainly has its greatest impact on another, their death.
An execution should be most brutal, within the limitation of not being cruel or unusual (not answering if that is possible), so that it fulfills the goals of the activity- punishment and deterrence - and reminds the country that killing, even if justified as punishment, is a terrible action that should be feared and avoided.
There is nothing in the oath that states "do no harm:. Apparently, the author has never read it.
2
I get iT. if a German doctor found a way to make gas smell good he would be providing a humanitarian service and should be applauded.
1
Best teaching by analogy I have ever seen
Poppycock! What would you do if you cause pain to someone you're murdering? Stop murdering her/him. In the reported cases where the anesthetic clearly went awry, the murder continued.
1
I believe that physicians must vigorously resist the medicalization of state directed homicide. If society insists upon killing its citizens, despite all evidence that the whole system is neither fair nor efficient, perhaps it would be better to request the services of a veterinarian instead of a physician. After all, vets are far better versed in the mechanics of quick and painless death than physicians.
It’s worth reading the American Veterinary Medical Associations latest “Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals”. One thing that stands out is the strong condemnation of the use of neuromuscular blocking agents such as pancuronium bromide. These drugs cause paralysis without inducing unconsciousness, making it not just possible but likely that the victim will experience pain yet be unable to move. Yet most state execution protocols include these paralytics. It is beyond my understanding how their use does not directly violate the eighth amendment.
It’s worth reading the American Veterinary Medical Associations latest “Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals”. One thing that stands out is the strong condemnation of the use of neuromuscular blocking agents such as pancuronium bromide. These drugs cause paralysis without inducing unconsciousness, making it not just possible but likely that the victim will experience pain yet be unable to move. Yet most state execution protocols include these paralytics. It is beyond my understanding how their use does not directly violate the eighth amendment.
4
Considering the horrors of the American prison system, I find it hard to think that life without parole is preferable to humane execution. Admittedly the American legal system makes far to many mistakes, but we have no interest in spending the money and the effort to fix it. Let us make conscious and honest choices between murder and torture in an imperfect system we are unwilling to fix.
1
As a physician, I believe assisting in dying for patients who are at the "end of life" is within our scope of care if it relieves suffering.
Assisting in inflicting tpain or suffering upon an individual (even to "mitigate" it) yin my view is a violation of physician practice and in moralistic words "a sin".
Stephen Rinsler, MD
Assisting in inflicting tpain or suffering upon an individual (even to "mitigate" it) yin my view is a violation of physician practice and in moralistic words "a sin".
Stephen Rinsler, MD
Your position is absurd and your defense of it disingenuous. "Though I oppose capital punishment as a matter of principle, as a doctor I believe physician presence at executions is consistent with our mandate to alleviate suffering." Physician presence? That's not what you mean. You mean physician participation. If you oppose capital punishment as a matter of principle then no one should be present or participating in it because it shouldn't be happening. Good grief.
This is terrible. Physicians are supposed to save lives, not end them.
1
There is no ethical way to participate in an execution, full stop. While your desire to eliminate pain is admirable, you can not justify participating in a fundamentally inhuman act by making it slightly more humane.
We depend on doctors to help us make wise decisions for our loved ones at the end of their natural life. To conflate the role of a doctor with the role of an executioner is a grave stain on their profession, and a huge burden on the public who will need to depend on the wisdom of doctors in critical, emotionally fraught situations.
We depend on doctors to help us make wise decisions for our loved ones at the end of their natural life. To conflate the role of a doctor with the role of an executioner is a grave stain on their profession, and a huge burden on the public who will need to depend on the wisdom of doctors in critical, emotionally fraught situations.
5
As humans, we have the power to rationalize literally any action we choose to take. The last rationalization that I found equally appalling revolved around "enhanced interrogations," (torture). Now that I think about it, doctors participated in those sessions too.
1
The basic argument here seems to be "the state is going to do it anyway, so doctors should do what we can to alleviate suffering." I'm sorry, but a physician's educated guess - and that's all it is - that the executed doesn't suffer will be just another argument used to justify an immoral barbarism, and can therefore never be viewed as "do(ing) no harm".
3
This argument in this opinion piece is twisted. I believe the AMA's logic is sound in advocating for physician non-participation in executions. In general, a physician treats an individual patient. In the case of an execution, the individual (an otherwise physically healthy human) is the one being administered a lethal dose of drugs. This event is in violation of the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm.
If, in contrast, one thinks of "society" as your patient and killing this person is a benefit to the "body of society" then I think you are not acting as a physician, you are confused about your role, and whatever moral authority you might have had as a healer has been co-opted by the state. Just because no one in the state will take one's medical license away for participating in an execution does not mean that what is being done by an individual physician is ethical.
If, in contrast, one thinks of "society" as your patient and killing this person is a benefit to the "body of society" then I think you are not acting as a physician, you are confused about your role, and whatever moral authority you might have had as a healer has been co-opted by the state. Just because no one in the state will take one's medical license away for participating in an execution does not mean that what is being done by an individual physician is ethical.
1
As long as the doctor provides no assistance or advice on the execution, it is acceptable to be present in case the "patient" starts to suffer. In that case a doctor can and should provide comfort and life SAVING measures.
I think of it like war: a doctor can and should treat any wounded person on either side. But picking up a gun or purposefully using their knowledge and skills to hurt someone should never happen.
I think of it like war: a doctor can and should treat any wounded person on either side. But picking up a gun or purposefully using their knowledge and skills to hurt someone should never happen.
1
"First do no harm" then help others to "do no harm" as well.
Maintaining that oath is a challenge, isn't it?
Maintaining that oath is a challenge, isn't it?
1
This piece is a good demonstration of an otherwise intelligent man being totally obtuse about an ethical issue. "I'm just helping..." As a physician, I usually do not see eye to eye with the AMA but on this matter of ethics, they have nailed it. Our role is to do no harm.
This is the type of reasoning that got the psychologists into so much hot water in the work some of them did with the CIA on torture.
This is the type of reasoning that got the psychologists into so much hot water in the work some of them did with the CIA on torture.
6
A sufficient number of condemned prisoners have been exonerated to prove that our judicial system is imperfect at best, and that capital punishment is sometimes state-sponsored murder. This fact, and not tears for those who are guilty of heinous crimes, has turned me into an opponent of capital punishment. I am therefore very surprised to see a physician support and publicly espouse the assistance of physicians in a process that kills an otherwise healthy person, and could involve the death of an innocent person.
What next? If a physician sees someone being murdered crudely in the streets does she/he stop and instruct the killer on how to kill with less pain and uncertainty? It's a short leap to having physicians decide that a patient will ultimately die, therefore they should painlessly speed them on their way, even if the patient disagrees.
Physicians may have a moral duty to reduce suffering, but their prime directive should always be to do no harm. Helping to kill a prisoner who, for all the physician can know, may be innocent, is a violation of that oath at the most fundamental of levels. This should also apply to any medical professional, nurses, EMTs and PAs alike, all of whom should function against a background of the same high moral standard.
What next? If a physician sees someone being murdered crudely in the streets does she/he stop and instruct the killer on how to kill with less pain and uncertainty? It's a short leap to having physicians decide that a patient will ultimately die, therefore they should painlessly speed them on their way, even if the patient disagrees.
Physicians may have a moral duty to reduce suffering, but their prime directive should always be to do no harm. Helping to kill a prisoner who, for all the physician can know, may be innocent, is a violation of that oath at the most fundamental of levels. This should also apply to any medical professional, nurses, EMTs and PAs alike, all of whom should function against a background of the same high moral standard.
5
There is a critical piece missing from this grotesquely misguided perspective. A doctor's duty is to his or her patient above all. Providing comfort to a dying patient to alleviate suffering is entirely appropriate because that is what the patient wants. The appropriate relief of suffering during an attempted execution is to pull out the intravenous and place the vials of midazolam, vecuronium, and potassium back in the refrigerator.
1
The claim made in this article is perfectly analagous to the "last meal" offered to the doomed inmate-- an attempt to distort and rationalize one's involvement in a process that can only be called murder.
Opposing the dead penalty (as I do) and participating in the practice are not contradictory. I also believe in the rule of law, and place that paramount to my opposition to capital punishment.
You can petition and protest to change the law, but judges, goveners, and prison workers have an obligation to uphold the law, even laws they disagree with. A trial was held, a jury unanimously recommended a sentance, and the judge passed the sentance down. My judgement is not superior.
Change the law or follow the law, but don't obstruct the law or force more brutality in executions as a form of protest.
You can petition and protest to change the law, but judges, goveners, and prison workers have an obligation to uphold the law, even laws they disagree with. A trial was held, a jury unanimously recommended a sentance, and the judge passed the sentance down. My judgement is not superior.
Change the law or follow the law, but don't obstruct the law or force more brutality in executions as a form of protest.
1
Refusing to play a role in state-sanctioned execution is not breaking the law, obstructing the law, or forcing more brutality. It is deciding that doctors have a higher obligation than to assist with the fading thought that revenge is justice, and letting those who insist on doing so take full responsibility for their actions.
3
Is it then also OK for doctors to participate in torture?
1
The good doctor needs to take an ethics class. Is he gong to condone physician participation in torture next ?
3
No, it's not OK to participate in random killing of people.
No, no, no.
No, no, no.
Let me get this straight. It's ok for doctors to help execute people because they are the most qualified to do it well.
Don't you think a doctor will alleviate suffering more effectively if s/he administers the poison to the offending prosecutors, governors, and legislators? The ones who allow this barbaric practice to continue? If you are going to think strategically, put your expertise where it will do the most good. Don't help the enemy. Seriously. This is disturbingly short-sighted.
Recommended viewing: Star Trek TOS: A Taste of Armageddon. War is cleaned up and conducted by computers. Virtual bombs produce real casualties who must report to disintegration chambers when their number is called.
Aside: It puzzles me that a defendant can be judged by a jury made up of peers, but that those peers are preselected to be pro-death penalty if the offense meets certain standards. In other words, I could never be selected for a capital murder case. Apparently I'm not a peer. I'm apart. It sure feels like I've lost a Constitutional right.
Don't you think a doctor will alleviate suffering more effectively if s/he administers the poison to the offending prosecutors, governors, and legislators? The ones who allow this barbaric practice to continue? If you are going to think strategically, put your expertise where it will do the most good. Don't help the enemy. Seriously. This is disturbingly short-sighted.
Recommended viewing: Star Trek TOS: A Taste of Armageddon. War is cleaned up and conducted by computers. Virtual bombs produce real casualties who must report to disintegration chambers when their number is called.
Aside: It puzzles me that a defendant can be judged by a jury made up of peers, but that those peers are preselected to be pro-death penalty if the offense meets certain standards. In other words, I could never be selected for a capital murder case. Apparently I'm not a peer. I'm apart. It sure feels like I've lost a Constitutional right.
5
This self-justification sounds awfully familiar. I’m reminded of the American Psychological Assn., which collaborated with the Bush Administration and CIA in developing and monitoring torture under the guise of “national security.” (This as distinct from the American Psychiatric Assn., a different organization, which forbade its members from participating in torture.) The psychologists justified this by saying their members were “monitoring torture” to make sure it didn’t go too far. But to be present during torture is to participate in it.
I suppose we all need to tell ourselves something so we can look ourselves in the mirror each morning. That doesn’t change the basic facts. Administering lethal injection drugs is not alleviating suffering, it’s participating in state-sanctioned killing. When those injections go wrong, as happened to Clayton D. Lockett in Oklahoma, the doctor is very much the instrument of suffering. You can’t justify that away, no matter how much you wish it were so.
I suppose we all need to tell ourselves something so we can look ourselves in the mirror each morning. That doesn’t change the basic facts. Administering lethal injection drugs is not alleviating suffering, it’s participating in state-sanctioned killing. When those injections go wrong, as happened to Clayton D. Lockett in Oklahoma, the doctor is very much the instrument of suffering. You can’t justify that away, no matter how much you wish it were so.
Having doctors involved in executions is not unlike the use of psychiatrists and psychologists to administer torture at Guantanamo. It is UNETHICAL, IMMORAL, WRONG!!!
Doctors-- do you want to participate in the killing of another human being who:
1) may be innocent- since we have seen that many innocent people are convicted
2) may be mentally handicapped or have a psychiatric disorder
3) may be both innocent AND mentally ill.
Dr. Jauhar SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF HIMSELF TO WRITE AN ARTICLE LIKE THIS.
Can any doctor justify being part of the state execution system? No,We need doctors to be politically active against the death penalty. We need doctors to stand for humanity and to protest that many in our prison system are mentally ill.
Doctors-- do you want to participate in the killing of another human being who:
1) may be innocent- since we have seen that many innocent people are convicted
2) may be mentally handicapped or have a psychiatric disorder
3) may be both innocent AND mentally ill.
Dr. Jauhar SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF HIMSELF TO WRITE AN ARTICLE LIKE THIS.
Can any doctor justify being part of the state execution system? No,We need doctors to be politically active against the death penalty. We need doctors to stand for humanity and to protest that many in our prison system are mentally ill.
3
Sad to hear unethical voices like this.
Good to know the AMA is strongly opposed on ethical grounds.
Good to know the AMA is strongly opposed on ethical grounds.
1
"Though I oppose capital punishment as a matter of principle, as a doctor I believe physician presence at executions is consistent with our mandate to alleviate suffering."
If you oppose capital punishment, oppose it; the fact that as a "physician" you can even conceive of healers-by-trade participting in state-sponsored killng raises serious questions about your moral and ethical fitness to practice medicine.
If you oppose capital punishment, oppose it; the fact that as a "physician" you can even conceive of healers-by-trade participting in state-sponsored killng raises serious questions about your moral and ethical fitness to practice medicine.
1
Facilitating capital punishment is more than a "moral quandary" for doctors, it's plainly granting a medical imprimatur to state-sanctioned killing... a most extreme form of harm.
Dr. Jauhar, you've argued yourself out of your oath.
Dr. Jauhar, you've argued yourself out of your oath.
3
Supreme court justices, doctors, super rational and murderous. What a country!
1
American doctors who oppose participating in torture should share their billing practices with us so we can make our own judgments.
A compassionate execution is much more humane than lifelong incarceration and degradation.
1
For a better understanding of the issues and dangers related to physicians participating in capital punishment, please read the classic paper by Leo Alexander, New England Journal of Medicine, 1949.
A doctor claims the right to be hypocritical but on what grounds a Justice?
1
Sure..... doctors (and society) have a duty to alleviate others' suffering.
But whose suffering? Murderer's, potential victims' or victim's family?
But whose suffering? Murderer's, potential victims' or victim's family?
It just gets worse and worse.
Since the inmate does not choose to die, the assisting doctor is an executioner, a state-mandated killer, regardless of what "humane" practice is being used. Killing is killing. Stop rationalizing to clear your conscience.
3
total sophistry. What a ridiculous "argument" to excuse, or even encourage, physician participation in judicial killings.
What if we held an execution and everyone refused to attend?
You could change of the name of Death Row to more a innocuous one, perhaps stealing a moniker from the Netherlands, where legal, physician assisted euthanasia is administered in an End of Life Clinic. Then, if you cam rename capital punishment sentenced inmates…calling him terminal patients...these moribund patients, who in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and 8 U.S. states (restricted to the mentally competent, terminally ill) would be euthanized supposedly at his or her request will, in this case, forego their lives at the request of The State. Voila! The whole process becomes sanitized, and is no longer societally offensive; and, prison remunerated physicians need not be concerned about moral dilemma, or oath breaking.
Words matter. Our errant bombs in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, or Syria don’t murder “innocent bystanders”…they induce “collateral damage”
[read comment as: sarcasm]
Words matter. Our errant bombs in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, or Syria don’t murder “innocent bystanders”…they induce “collateral damage”
[read comment as: sarcasm]
You are in effect equating ethical mandate ...with professional privilege.....with your construct an automobile mechanic could be expected to maintain higher ethical standards of practice...than a physician.
Dr. Jauhar says physicians should participate because less trained people will be involved if they refuse resulting in worse suffering.
As a physician myself, I have heard similar arguments made about a number of different issues. For example, doctors prescribing opioids to drug addicts claiming that it is safer for them than their buying drugs on the street. And a number of doctors who collaborated with the Nazis used the excuse that as their victims were doomed anyway their collaboration might ease suffering.
Remember to what place the road is paved with good intentions.
As a physician myself, I have heard similar arguments made about a number of different issues. For example, doctors prescribing opioids to drug addicts claiming that it is safer for them than their buying drugs on the street. And a number of doctors who collaborated with the Nazis used the excuse that as their victims were doomed anyway their collaboration might ease suffering.
Remember to what place the road is paved with good intentions.
1
I'm actually shocked, that this soulless huckster of a medical professional (can't bring myself to call this person a doctor) - more interested in pushing his books, than living up to his oath - gets a voice in the pages of the NYT.
If you follow this person's logic to the end, than he should get on the barricades for assisted suicide in this country, because at least that is a patient will - while execution is premeditated MURDER.
To somehow pin into this loathsome piece of self-justification his opposition to the death penalty (out of principle - hahaha) is a cheap stunt to be on both sides of the argument in order to sell more books. Hope you enjoy the royaltiies, "Doctor Death!". Not since Mengele has a Doctor repulsed me more.
If you follow this person's logic to the end, than he should get on the barricades for assisted suicide in this country, because at least that is a patient will - while execution is premeditated MURDER.
To somehow pin into this loathsome piece of self-justification his opposition to the death penalty (out of principle - hahaha) is a cheap stunt to be on both sides of the argument in order to sell more books. Hope you enjoy the royaltiies, "Doctor Death!". Not since Mengele has a Doctor repulsed me more.
11
The logic in this piece jaw-droppingly bizarre. It appears to suggest that in order for a doctor to keep his or her oath to do no harm, he or she needs to kill people who are not otherwise ill. Inmates who go into an execution chamber enter it healthy and leave dead. A doctor facilitating that is an endorsement and facilitation of state-sponsored murder.
Reasonable people can disagree on the issue of doctor assisted suicide for the terminally ill. Reasonable people can disagree on the issue of the death penalty as a legal sanction. However, a doctor entering the room of a healthy patient with the singular intention intention of ending the life of that patient is a clear violation of an oath to do no harm. The justice of the thing can be the subject of debate. That it is a medical treatment of some kind is absurd.
Reasonable people can disagree on the issue of doctor assisted suicide for the terminally ill. Reasonable people can disagree on the issue of the death penalty as a legal sanction. However, a doctor entering the room of a healthy patient with the singular intention intention of ending the life of that patient is a clear violation of an oath to do no harm. The justice of the thing can be the subject of debate. That it is a medical treatment of some kind is absurd.
it's funny how ignorant people are. In the photo that accompanies this piece, the folks are holding signs that read "Thou shall not kill", how many people know that the real commandment reads "Thou shall not murder". Big difference.
3
Strapping a man down on a gurney, putting IV's in his veins, and pumping poisons into them to kill him is nothing but cold-blooded murder. My state of Connecticut outlawed state-sponsored murder, as has every advanced nation on the planet, except America.
New England understands it's murder. So sad that there are still places in this country in which people enjoy the spectacle of official murder.
New England understands it's murder. So sad that there are still places in this country in which people enjoy the spectacle of official murder.
1
It's how it's phrased in King James.
Not everyone is a bible scholar or an originalist.
Now are you going to break down the differences in Hebrew and Aramaic for the words "kill"and "murder"?
Not everyone is a bible scholar or an originalist.
Now are you going to break down the differences in Hebrew and Aramaic for the words "kill"and "murder"?
In the context of state sanctioned killing, the difference between "kill" and "murder" is meaningless.
1
Nazi-era physicians who participated in the abhorrent medical experiments of that time likely constructed similar benevolent rationales for their taking part. I question whether the author's motive for this article extends beyond self-publicity.
16
Once again, we see that James Dao's opinion page is overloaded with conservative voices. And we still have yet to see an oped from the recently hired climate change-denier Bret Stephens.
Mr Dao should take his Fox News Lite opinion page somewhere else.
Mr Dao should take his Fox News Lite opinion page somewhere else.
6
How about doctors being present as prisoners are being tortured? They could check vital signs, maybe dress wounds between beatings, etc. That would certainly alleviate suffering right?
When you are accomplice to something barbaric, you're accomplice to something barbaric. No matter what moral fig leaf you use.
When you are accomplice to something barbaric, you're accomplice to something barbaric. No matter what moral fig leaf you use.
24
Great stuff. I look forward to your rationale for doctors aiding in torture at Guantanamo.
7
M.D.s who participate in executions are executioners with doctorates, not doctors. Just as M.D.s who advise biotech investors are financial consultants with doctorates, not doctors.
7
Does Dr. Jauhar endorse physician participation during torture sessions to ensure that the victim does not die? Our mandate is, "First, do no harm". Dr. Jauhar's position is absurd. It should be the subject of blather on his personal website, not on the Times opinion page, where it serves only to embarrass physicians everywhere. Charles J. Van Hook, MD
Western medicine began with the injunction: First, do no harm.
Perhaps then the USA should dispatch doctors to every community they plan to bomb so the injured can get medical attention right after the attack. Any volunteers?
8
Dr. Jauhar wants to kill people who do not want to be killed -- to "alleviate their suffering." He's good with this because they suffer the "terminal disease" of having been condemned by a political apparatus famous for its irregularities.
"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly." An ethics for the ages.
"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly." An ethics for the ages.
No. This is nonsense. Absolute nonsense. Doctors should not be complicit in this abuse of human rights by the state.
4
Using this argument, helping a neighbor kill his estranged wife would also be OK, as long as the doctor was alleviating her suffering. I don't buy it.
1
Being a part of the execution industrial complex is just wrong.
4
So, a doctor being a part of the abortion industrial complex is right?
Death penalty is not, and probably cannot be, delivered fairly. Obviously it depends on your luck (not to talk about skin colour, poverty etc.) whether you'll get life or death penalty for murder. If someone "deserves" death penalty only for the most terrible crimes, then your system is not working (count all horrible torturer-sadists etc. serving life).
It's actually not okay for anyone to participate in executions.
5
As a physician I find it shocking to hear a colleague advocate for our participation in capital punishment. Even a most superficial reading of history reveals how many executions, acts of genocide, pogroms, and other mass murders doctors could plausibly facilitate using Dr. Jauhar's reasoning. Dr. Jauhar makes a futile grasp for the moral high ground by declaring himself opposed to capital punishment "as a matter of principle." If so, stand by your priniciple, Dr. Jauhar. Condemn the barbarous execution of individuals by the state and those doctors who cooperate in this barbarism.
6
So, let me get this straight: there are no studies showing which system is best or most humane, no studies showing that doctors are better than EMT's at not botching the job, no proof that one method of execution is more humane than another but the AMA is wrong to not want to alleviate the brutality.
Therefore, the argument here is that doctors should go along as the drugs they need will so be no longer available and the condemned or doomed anyway. This comes under the heading of "say what".
Therefore, the argument here is that doctors should go along as the drugs they need will so be no longer available and the condemned or doomed anyway. This comes under the heading of "say what".
I await justifications for violating the other nine commandments, then we can start on the other million laws and norms societies have developed over millennia.
1
Doctors participating in executions are not alleviating suffering, and they certainly are not providing comfort. They are facilitating state-sanctioned murder. And then if that is too subtle for you, Dr. Jauhar, there is that little part about "do no harm." You think a doctor injecting poison into the veins of a living human being is abiding by that requirement?
4
Which countries sponsor state murder? Pathetic america for still supporting it.
In some countries the max sentence is 20 years I believe - and even the hardest criminals get paroled earlier.
Americans are ignorant. Americans carry bloodlust. America is lost.
In some countries the max sentence is 20 years I believe - and even the hardest criminals get paroled earlier.
Americans are ignorant. Americans carry bloodlust. America is lost.
8
State executions as punishment, as retributive justice for heinous acts, is not the Greek meaning of the word "euthanasia," (for "good death" or "dying well"), as though to kill the person fulfilled the person's wishes. However we look at it, it's state murder, assisted by physicians. And that's why it's not "O.K." by the oath that governs all Western certified physicians, to first "do no harm."
Our 8th Amendment ban on state cruelty applies to a state death penalty in that executing a defenseless prisoner lacks the imminent threat level of any justifiable motive of self-defense ---- even for prisoners expressing a wish to die rather than serve time.
Our 8th Amendment ban on state cruelty applies to a state death penalty in that executing a defenseless prisoner lacks the imminent threat level of any justifiable motive of self-defense ---- even for prisoners expressing a wish to die rather than serve time.
The various technological "advances" in methods of execution -- the guillotine, electric chair, gas chamber, lethal injection -- have all been justified, to one degree or another, as providing a more "humane" method of taking a prisoner's life. Today's execution methods are aimed at salving the conscience and self-image of those who do the killing and, since they are more likely to be conducted in a closed setting than, say, 19th-century hangings, avoid any unseemly public spectacle (all the more important in this social media age).
The operators of these mechanisms -- whether credentialed as an electrician or physician -- are state-hired and paid killers, no more and no less. The notion that the man who pulls the switch to operate the electric chair, or springs the trap of a gallows, is an "executioner," while an M.D. who sends poison coursing through the condemned person's veins is not, is on its face a self-justifying absurdity.
If you are a doctor who believes in the justice of the death penalty, then by all means enlist as an executioner and own up to your responsibility in that role. But please, don't try to sugar-coat your deadly chore as alleviating anyone's suffering.
The operators of these mechanisms -- whether credentialed as an electrician or physician -- are state-hired and paid killers, no more and no less. The notion that the man who pulls the switch to operate the electric chair, or springs the trap of a gallows, is an "executioner," while an M.D. who sends poison coursing through the condemned person's veins is not, is on its face a self-justifying absurdity.
If you are a doctor who believes in the justice of the death penalty, then by all means enlist as an executioner and own up to your responsibility in that role. But please, don't try to sugar-coat your deadly chore as alleviating anyone's suffering.
9
In addition, that doctor would best be an anesthesiologist. Only an anesthesiologist is fully trained and experienced in the major considerations that can alter the "outcome" of an execution, which needs to include a successful induction of complete unconsciousness but also the appearance of such a state. Prisoners, perhaps even more than patients, can have significant issues with IV access as well as medical problems. Most botched executions relate to poor IV access or inadequate drug selection and dose. I too am against the death penalty. But a botched execution is tantamount to torture, which I oppose also.
P Bailey, MD
P Bailey, MD
You don't need an anesthesiologist for this life-ending act. A phlebotomist is capable of starting IV's .
"Health" is a state of being. Promotion of health is the purpose of health care, which almost all consider to be a good and moral. Physicians are practitioners of health care, that is, they seek to help individuals either maintain, or become healthy. Physicians also take an oath to "do no harm". To knowingly harm another is neither good, nor moral, and thus can be considered immoral. Executions are obviously the greatest harm to health. Participation by a physician is, therefore, an immoral act. Any other argument is just an "alternative fact".
1
As a physician, I would not want to personally participate in executions. There is no "scientific" basis for this position. Whatever arguments are made--from Dr. Jauhar's perspective or the AMA's--are moral/ethical issues. They are justifications and acts of faith.
Aside from those considerations, my objections to the death penalty are beyond "cruel and unusual punishment." which it is. It goes to the socioeconomic inequity of the application--hence the racial skews. More affluent folk are not usually subjected to the procedure, in large part because they can afford better defense attorneys. Given that circumstance, it makes the idea that it is "humane" to execute convicted poor folk relative to their more affluent (and more often white) counterparts quite difficult to support or accept.
Aside from those considerations, my objections to the death penalty are beyond "cruel and unusual punishment." which it is. It goes to the socioeconomic inequity of the application--hence the racial skews. More affluent folk are not usually subjected to the procedure, in large part because they can afford better defense attorneys. Given that circumstance, it makes the idea that it is "humane" to execute convicted poor folk relative to their more affluent (and more often white) counterparts quite difficult to support or accept.
8
As a doctor, I was offended by this article. I think that is all I need to say.
16
Premeditated homicide is murder, and nothing is more premeditated than capital punishment. Execution by lethal injection only sanitizes the process, especially when a paralytic agent is used - no gasping or writhing to upset the witnesses. A physician (or other medical professional or paraprofessional) who participates in an execution has killed and should lose his license. I note that Dr. Jauhar is a cardiologist who treats heart failure patients. Intractable heart failure causes terrible suffering. Does he favor euthanizing such people?
3
The first major bioethics code was the Nuremberg Code in response to physician participation in the state executions of the holocaust. Any decent commentary on physician executors needs to at least reckon with this or we have lost the lessons of the past. This is the second poorly argued bioethics opinion piece in the Times in the past 2 days, the first being the terrible article by Joffe and Lynch claiming that, again according to efficiency and pragmatics rather than thoughtful ethical arguments, patient specimens should be taken without consent. Their argument fell apart even in terms of pragmatics, but the problem with that article and this one is that they deal with major bioethical issues without even addressing the deep and thoughtful work that has been done on physician executions and informed consent. We expect economist op-ed authors to represent the best work in the field to inform the rest of us, we expect scientists to do the same. But somehow these bioethics comments are just strings of poorly thought-through claims that can be easily debunked, without representing the real scholarly debates on these issues or truly engaging the major moral questions. These are flaky commentaries rather than the thoughtful work effectively and succinctly summarizing major thoughts of a field, which I expect of the Times op-eds.
9
It's hard to get through the day without rationalization. I guess. If doctors refused to show up and pharm companies refused to sell these drugs to states, there wouldn't be a death penalty.
4
Trained phlebotomists take the vast majority of blood and could easily be trained to do this barbaric procedure. Doctors are actually the last people I would want inserting an IV - they do not get that practice.
Saying that they are there to alleviate suffering is like saying it's OK to drop a nuclear bomb on a second Japanese city just to make sure the first one worked to end the ravages of war.
You simply cannot be against the death penalty and say it is OK for doctors to attend to them. In professions like medicine and nursing, a code of ethics speaks against actively participating in any procedure that actually kills people.
Saying that they are there to alleviate suffering is like saying it's OK to drop a nuclear bomb on a second Japanese city just to make sure the first one worked to end the ravages of war.
You simply cannot be against the death penalty and say it is OK for doctors to attend to them. In professions like medicine and nursing, a code of ethics speaks against actively participating in any procedure that actually kills people.
4
In cases where execution is warranted- monstrous crime, guilt not in question- traditional long-drop hanging would work perfectly well. Weigh the inmate, calculate the drop necessary to beak the cervical spinal cord. Neither cruel nor unusual.
1
Jauhar implies that some states are turning to firing squads or other forms of execution because doctors refuse to participate in lethal injections, but that's not true. The states are seeking other methods because they have been unable to find suitable drugs for the execution. Drug makers don't want their products associated with killing; they want their image to be one of health and healing. Jauhar would do well to follow their lead. His participation is tacit, if not explicit, endorsement of the death penalty.
15
The problem of being against the death penalty is that some deserve it. Some deserve much worse. That doesn't make it 'right' or 'moral'. Dukakis answer to the question by in his 1980 debate with Reagan help loose him the presidency.
The death penalty should be abolished because we make mistakes in its implementation. A physician who participates in an execution or torture is not acting within the norms of the profession to help people in medical need, who ask for and consent for the medical intervention. They are acting as thugs in state sponsored killings.
Yes mr. Cardiologists you have stopped being a physician when you participate in an execution. Who would want you as there doctor. Not me.
Brian Shapiro MD FACS a general surgeon from Grand Blanc Michigan
The death penalty should be abolished because we make mistakes in its implementation. A physician who participates in an execution or torture is not acting within the norms of the profession to help people in medical need, who ask for and consent for the medical intervention. They are acting as thugs in state sponsored killings.
Yes mr. Cardiologists you have stopped being a physician when you participate in an execution. Who would want you as there doctor. Not me.
Brian Shapiro MD FACS a general surgeon from Grand Blanc Michigan
1
If he truly believes this, I'd want another cardiologist to take care of my myocardial infarction! At least in Canada, it's a moot point as capital punishment was abolished in 1976.
5
As a fellow physician I find this commentary absolutely ridiculous. I challenge the author to put his money where his mouth is and then give us his expert opinion.
11
Nobody, doctor or otherwise, should ever participate in an execution. It's barbaric. It's heinous.
9
So thoroughly wrong. I mean, if the looters are going to rob the store anyway, why not help them by picking the lock so they can at least steal the merchandise without wrecking the store completely? I'm opposed to theft, but since it's going to happen anyway, why not prevent needless destruction. This article is ridiculous.
20
So many countries in the world no longer execute criminals. How a medical doctor in the US rationalizes this behavior sounds a whole lot like someone in a crazed nation that is doing inhumane things to their population. Making it sound humane is bizarre.
8
For the record I am 100% opposed to the death penalty.
That being said, it seems to me if our goal is a very fast, painless execution, the most reliable system would be something along the lines of a modernized guillotine.
I know it would be messy but the victim would never know. And that brings me to my main point. I don't think we, ... and I'm generalizing across our entire society, not us individually ... we aren't really concerned with the welfare of the prisoner. We just don't want to see a mess death. We want it to look to us like he has just "gone to sleep" ... nice and peaceful like... Because if we had to face the reality of death a lot more people would oppose the death penalty.
So I say, bring back the guillotine, with technological improvements of course. No doctors required. Just a good mechanic and a knife sharpener.
That being said, it seems to me if our goal is a very fast, painless execution, the most reliable system would be something along the lines of a modernized guillotine.
I know it would be messy but the victim would never know. And that brings me to my main point. I don't think we, ... and I'm generalizing across our entire society, not us individually ... we aren't really concerned with the welfare of the prisoner. We just don't want to see a mess death. We want it to look to us like he has just "gone to sleep" ... nice and peaceful like... Because if we had to face the reality of death a lot more people would oppose the death penalty.
So I say, bring back the guillotine, with technological improvements of course. No doctors required. Just a good mechanic and a knife sharpener.
4
I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course.-- Hippocratic Oath
17
"I recognize the moral quandary that the situation presents for doctors whose hope is that killing by the state will end. But as Arkansas has shown, states will go to great lengths to execute criminals, even at the risk of causing undue suffering.
Doctors can act as a safeguard against this brutality."
This is the type of mental contortion you get when you condone the death penalty as a doctor.
Doctors can act as a safeguard against this brutality."
This is the type of mental contortion you get when you condone the death penalty as a doctor.
16
Even dearly loathed, profit hungry pharmaceutical companies have worked to block prisons from obtaining the drugs used for executions. If they can see the ethical problem it must be stupendously obvious.
18
As a correctional physician, it is chilling to wake to this. The longstanding ethical position on physician involvement in executions is sound, and this article alone may serve as a justification for some that might participate. The author's argument is thin and partially considered. From his tone, it is doubtful to me that he has entered a correctional facility.
The Times' decision to publish this comes as a shock. I entreat the author to refrain from more writing on the topic until he spends time in the correctional setting, meets our patients, and educates himself further on the ethical grounding of medical-correctional standards. Montefiore and Mount Sinai both have academic-correctional health programs in the NYC area.
The Times' decision to publish this comes as a shock. I entreat the author to refrain from more writing on the topic until he spends time in the correctional setting, meets our patients, and educates himself further on the ethical grounding of medical-correctional standards. Montefiore and Mount Sinai both have academic-correctional health programs in the NYC area.
122
it was unclear from your writing whether you were for participation or against it?
I too was surprised that the TIMES published this article but, although I do not agree with Dr. Jauhar, I was glad to read it because it was thought provoking and I believe in freedom of speech. Having our thoughts provoked, seriously examining subjects from various angles, considering the strengths and weaknesses of any argument is a healthy thing. It used be one of the foremost principals of higher education.
Wasn't it these kinds of bourgeois rhetorical contortions that gave us the guillotine?
And what shall we say of the doctor who unknowingly participates in executing the one in twenty-five death row inmates we've now statistically established to have been innocent and wrongfully convicted? How can someone acting under the Hippocratic Oath gamble that he or she is not helping execute the innocent?
And what shall we say of the doctor who unknowingly participates in executing the one in twenty-five death row inmates we've now statistically established to have been innocent and wrongfully convicted? How can someone acting under the Hippocratic Oath gamble that he or she is not helping execute the innocent?
8
The purpose of punishment, is generalized deterrence, what do I have to do to A to keep B from doing so.
Generalized deterrence, separate from specific deterrence, is directly discussed in United States Sentencing Guidelines, guiding US felony sentencing.
If we believed in generalized deterrence, than our choices are to execute A to save B from killing, and B's victim, C, from B's homicidal activities
and thus we prefer the greater good,
and failure to execute, creates the greater harm, so while we might not be able to do NO harm, we can choose between greater and lesser harm
Generalized deterrence, separate from specific deterrence, is directly discussed in United States Sentencing Guidelines, guiding US felony sentencing.
If we believed in generalized deterrence, than our choices are to execute A to save B from killing, and B's victim, C, from B's homicidal activities
and thus we prefer the greater good,
and failure to execute, creates the greater harm, so while we might not be able to do NO harm, we can choose between greater and lesser harm
History indicates clearly that capital punishment is NOT an effective deterrent.
1
"It is not a stretch to think of death-row inmates who have exhausted their appeals as having a terminal disease with 100 percent mortality."
Is it a stretch to think of the Jews who were killed in state sanctioned executions during WWII as having a terminal disease with 100 percent mortality? Were any Germans who participated in those murders simply alleviating suffering by not telling the Jews of their fate but simply shepherding them on their way? Were those Germans not complicit and culpable?
Doctors, by participating in killing by the state, are participating in the act of killing a human being without their consent. This is not providing comfort care to a terminally ill patient, rather this is participating in state sanctioned murder.
Is it a stretch to think of the Jews who were killed in state sanctioned executions during WWII as having a terminal disease with 100 percent mortality? Were any Germans who participated in those murders simply alleviating suffering by not telling the Jews of their fate but simply shepherding them on their way? Were those Germans not complicit and culpable?
Doctors, by participating in killing by the state, are participating in the act of killing a human being without their consent. This is not providing comfort care to a terminally ill patient, rather this is participating in state sanctioned murder.
16
If we are going to have the death penalty, why don't we just go back to the firing squad? It's quickly fatal, less expensive, and bullets don't expire.
Not that I support the death penalty. Justice for the wealthy is very different than it is for mere mortals, and DNA evidence is clearing a lot of people who were convicted of serious crimes. The justice system is broken, and imposing such a sentence after a broken process is just wrong.
Not that I support the death penalty. Justice for the wealthy is very different than it is for mere mortals, and DNA evidence is clearing a lot of people who were convicted of serious crimes. The justice system is broken, and imposing such a sentence after a broken process is just wrong.
16
As much as I do not want a prisoner to suffer while being put to death (as much as I do not want prisoners put to death!) I fail to see how a doctor is not violating his or her Hippocratic oath to do no harm by administering these lethal drugs to death row inmates. Dr. Jauhar argues that it is a matter of "palliative" care that a doctor be present during an execution. He undercuts his own argument by admitting that a doctor was present for the botched execution of Clayton Lockett, who obviously suffered during his death in Oklahoma in 2014. If this could happen in Oklahoma, why could it not hapen anywhere else? No amount of logic can put doctors ethically in a place where they are actively putting someone to death. Doctors should adhere to the AMA ethics guidelines, and to their Hippocratic oath, and stay out of the execution chamber. Let us not defile the healing profession with barbarism.
71
Dr. Jauhar answered a millennia old question at last.
How did enlightened human societies allowed the mass executions of holocast, the genocides, the eugenics experiments, the gonorrhea trials and the torture psychiatry etc ? The cognitive distortion of false equivalency between a moral wrong and the practical need.
In essence, what Dr Jauhar is justifying is that the immorality of "killing" someone should be subservient to the "practical" need to get rid of someone. And doctors should make the process easy. Even though Dr Jauhar cannot tell whether only the symptoms of dying like writhing, frothing or choking are painful or the end result of dying is painful in yet unknown ways.
Thankful to AMA and all medical professionals for standing up to the core of medicine.
Do No Harm. Please.
How did enlightened human societies allowed the mass executions of holocast, the genocides, the eugenics experiments, the gonorrhea trials and the torture psychiatry etc ? The cognitive distortion of false equivalency between a moral wrong and the practical need.
In essence, what Dr Jauhar is justifying is that the immorality of "killing" someone should be subservient to the "practical" need to get rid of someone. And doctors should make the process easy. Even though Dr Jauhar cannot tell whether only the symptoms of dying like writhing, frothing or choking are painful or the end result of dying is painful in yet unknown ways.
Thankful to AMA and all medical professionals for standing up to the core of medicine.
Do No Harm. Please.
15
Absurd, self serving, and yet familiar. Conservative Republicans who invade a woman's privacy forcing trans-vaginal ultrasound and all other measures to delay abortion for a woman's own good is as dubious as "alleviating the suffering" of one being executed.
Doctors should never assist in executions and reject interference by government in the treatment of women. No. Abortion is not murder in America except in the mind of religious persons who are prohibited from imposing their belief on everyone. Fetuses are not persons and pseudo scientific claims to the contrary are ridiculous and contemptible in legal terms. Assisting in the execution of a real person is definitively a violation of the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm. Abortion often prevents harm to women.
Doctors should never assist in executions and reject interference by government in the treatment of women. No. Abortion is not murder in America except in the mind of religious persons who are prohibited from imposing their belief on everyone. Fetuses are not persons and pseudo scientific claims to the contrary are ridiculous and contemptible in legal terms. Assisting in the execution of a real person is definitively a violation of the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm. Abortion often prevents harm to women.
7
Having a doctor present and having a doctor participate are two completely different things. This argument only works by conflating the two.
Of course a doctor should be present. We've seen that things can go horribly wrong. But the person that plays the key role in an execution is, by definition, the executioner. Also by definition, one simply cannot be a doctor and executioner simultaneously.
Regardless of title or diploma, the second a doctor injects a legal cocktail into an unconsenting individual, they switch roles and cease to be a doctor. They become the executioner. Is that acceptable? Not in any civilized society.
Of course a doctor should be present. We've seen that things can go horribly wrong. But the person that plays the key role in an execution is, by definition, the executioner. Also by definition, one simply cannot be a doctor and executioner simultaneously.
Regardless of title or diploma, the second a doctor injects a legal cocktail into an unconsenting individual, they switch roles and cease to be a doctor. They become the executioner. Is that acceptable? Not in any civilized society.
8
Dr. Jauhar,
I am a Registered Nurse and I must, respectfully, disagree with you. I see you wish to relieve suffering to these unfortunate souls who will be executed. As professionals, we must unflinchingly and untiringly maintain the line that our professions have drawn. You suggest situations such as these are comprised of ethical principles in tension. You focus on the duty to alleviate suffering. You state an equivalence of this situation with that of a person suffering from a disease with "100 percent mortality." But, there is a difference. This disease is man-made. A comparison can be made with the killing that occurred at Auschwitz and that of the Euthanasia programs (Aktion T4) of Nazi Germany, both of which were enacted by Medical and Nursing professionals who cited, among many other reasons for their participation, compassion.
However, we Medical and Nursing professionals must lead. We must use every ounce of power we can muster to maintain the never compromising statement that we will do no harm, not today, not ever. Our professions must not assist in this murder, for that is what it is--murder. It is through our professional expertise and the trust the public places in our experienced opinions that we may strongly assist and lead to enact this necessary change in our society.
I am a Registered Nurse and I must, respectfully, disagree with you. I see you wish to relieve suffering to these unfortunate souls who will be executed. As professionals, we must unflinchingly and untiringly maintain the line that our professions have drawn. You suggest situations such as these are comprised of ethical principles in tension. You focus on the duty to alleviate suffering. You state an equivalence of this situation with that of a person suffering from a disease with "100 percent mortality." But, there is a difference. This disease is man-made. A comparison can be made with the killing that occurred at Auschwitz and that of the Euthanasia programs (Aktion T4) of Nazi Germany, both of which were enacted by Medical and Nursing professionals who cited, among many other reasons for their participation, compassion.
However, we Medical and Nursing professionals must lead. We must use every ounce of power we can muster to maintain the never compromising statement that we will do no harm, not today, not ever. Our professions must not assist in this murder, for that is what it is--murder. It is through our professional expertise and the trust the public places in our experienced opinions that we may strongly assist and lead to enact this necessary change in our society.
14
Given the historical patterns of racism and false conviction, how any rational human being could participate in the decision to take another individual's life as a form of punishment is beyond my comprehension.
Yet, here we have a senior member of the medical community defending his industry's role in state sponsored murder.
Doctors can alleviate suffering by considering their personal responsibility in creating a US health care system built on a cruel foundation of greed and corruption now causing millions to suffer under an inhuman "what the market will bear" economy.
Although I consider the death penalty ethically wrong for a civilized society, Dr. Jauhar's impassioned plea to participate in the process is another troubling example of an out of touch elite intellectual class. This is the sort of abstract fringe discussion we can afford to have after we've solved the problem of $100 for 15 minute office visit, $50,000 for routine outpatient procedures, $100 for medicine that cost just $10 a few years ago.
If Dr. Jauhar really wants to "do no harm", address the greed pushing health care access away from more than 150 million people. Perhaps it's not surprising a physician community that can't figure out how to get a sick child the care and medicine they need, also can't figure out if its OK or not to kill a person against their will based on historically unreliable evidence.
Yet, here we have a senior member of the medical community defending his industry's role in state sponsored murder.
Doctors can alleviate suffering by considering their personal responsibility in creating a US health care system built on a cruel foundation of greed and corruption now causing millions to suffer under an inhuman "what the market will bear" economy.
Although I consider the death penalty ethically wrong for a civilized society, Dr. Jauhar's impassioned plea to participate in the process is another troubling example of an out of touch elite intellectual class. This is the sort of abstract fringe discussion we can afford to have after we've solved the problem of $100 for 15 minute office visit, $50,000 for routine outpatient procedures, $100 for medicine that cost just $10 a few years ago.
If Dr. Jauhar really wants to "do no harm", address the greed pushing health care access away from more than 150 million people. Perhaps it's not surprising a physician community that can't figure out how to get a sick child the care and medicine they need, also can't figure out if its OK or not to kill a person against their will based on historically unreliable evidence.
6
The vast majority of physicians are victims, not perpetrators, of the change in medical care from profession to for profit business. That is why there is so much talk in the medical literature about physician burnout. I have never understood why so many people continue to hold physicians accountable for changes that were imposed upon them by the unregulated free market.
Because the AMA and associated medical organizations have massive influence shaping the recommendations and endorsements of medical policy (and consequently, politics). Our health care system is a disease that is killing us and AMA refuses to challenge policies that enrich their membership.
Physicians have become involved in horrible practices of investing in medical labs, imaging centers, pharmaceutical companies, etc. Drug/medical studies at universities are monopolized by corporate influence peddlers. Many of the board members at the helm of insurance companies and medical centers (the same ones gouging patients) are also physicians. Conflict of interest between the patient and physicians own personal investments exist everywhere in the health care system.
Physicians could unite and advocate for their patients in NY Times editorials. While it does happen occasionally, more often than not a physician's contribution is typically scolding us lesser people for lifestyle choices.
The sudden interest in the death penalty strikes me as something more than ironic, since our health care system is built around the concept that if you can't afford to pay outrageous fees, you deserve to suffer as your punishment.
Physicians have become involved in horrible practices of investing in medical labs, imaging centers, pharmaceutical companies, etc. Drug/medical studies at universities are monopolized by corporate influence peddlers. Many of the board members at the helm of insurance companies and medical centers (the same ones gouging patients) are also physicians. Conflict of interest between the patient and physicians own personal investments exist everywhere in the health care system.
Physicians could unite and advocate for their patients in NY Times editorials. While it does happen occasionally, more often than not a physician's contribution is typically scolding us lesser people for lifestyle choices.
The sudden interest in the death penalty strikes me as something more than ironic, since our health care system is built around the concept that if you can't afford to pay outrageous fees, you deserve to suffer as your punishment.
I am against the Death Penalty
but if people are going to be put to death
can we not find an more painless and quicker way ?
Nitrogen Gas, Helium...
but if people are going to be put to death
can we not find an more painless and quicker way ?
Nitrogen Gas, Helium...
It seems there will always be an apologist for any (otherwis) unspeakable horror. Dr. Mengele helped the Nazis do humane "research" on Jewish and other undesirable prisoners. Only a total boycott can stop this state-sponsored murder madness
1
Godwin's law strikes quickly here:
So by your reasoning, you would have been willing to help administer Zyklon B gas onto Nazi victims because that saves them from a more gruesome death such as being buried alive?
You swear an oath to do no harm. Being an accessory to a (state sanctioned) murder is still doing harm...with much of it being the medicalization and thus partial legitimization and sanitizing of this gruesome process. I bet you many less citizens would support the death penalty if we brought firing squads and the electric chair back.
So by your reasoning, you would have been willing to help administer Zyklon B gas onto Nazi victims because that saves them from a more gruesome death such as being buried alive?
You swear an oath to do no harm. Being an accessory to a (state sanctioned) murder is still doing harm...with much of it being the medicalization and thus partial legitimization and sanitizing of this gruesome process. I bet you many less citizens would support the death penalty if we brought firing squads and the electric chair back.
1
You first, Sadeep.
1
Sorry, Dr. Jauhar: There is no moral quandary here, only the moral quagmire in which you find yourself.
Please, if you're going to (re)write this tired opinion piece, at least know what you're talking about. The AMA rules may have no teeth, and the state medical licensing boards may have no balls; but certain medical specialty boards, such as Anesthesiology, do have both the moral clear-sightedness to prohibit their diplomates from being involved in any aspect of an execution, and a real enforcement capability, the revokation of board certification, and thus of hospital privileges.
Just ask UMass anesthesiology prof and formerly-ubiquitous state's expert witness in charge of okaying execution drugs, including Midazolam: Dr. Mark Dershwitz, MD PhD. He has given up this decades-long practice, reportedly due to pressure from the Board of Anesthesiology.
The Arkansas prison physician who (allegedly) fraudulently procured drugs from distributors unwilling to sell them for lethal injection purposes should be named, and if a member of a specialty whose board prohibits such activity, should be sanctioned by its authorities.
Please, if you're going to (re)write this tired opinion piece, at least know what you're talking about. The AMA rules may have no teeth, and the state medical licensing boards may have no balls; but certain medical specialty boards, such as Anesthesiology, do have both the moral clear-sightedness to prohibit their diplomates from being involved in any aspect of an execution, and a real enforcement capability, the revokation of board certification, and thus of hospital privileges.
Just ask UMass anesthesiology prof and formerly-ubiquitous state's expert witness in charge of okaying execution drugs, including Midazolam: Dr. Mark Dershwitz, MD PhD. He has given up this decades-long practice, reportedly due to pressure from the Board of Anesthesiology.
The Arkansas prison physician who (allegedly) fraudulently procured drugs from distributors unwilling to sell them for lethal injection purposes should be named, and if a member of a specialty whose board prohibits such activity, should be sanctioned by its authorities.
4
You must really believe this nonsense. First do no harm. That is it, nothing else. First and overwhelming guiding principle. Thus the docs that worked with the SS helped to alleviate suffering since the gas was so effective, should know they did honest work during the holocaust. If people wish to take their own life they should be able to without the assistance of a physician. When the state takes your life without your consent their is no ethical role for the physician to play.
1
You could just as well argue that drug manufacturers should not ban the use of their drugs in executions, because by supplying the best drugs, they could alleviate potential suffering in the condemned.
1
Last week we had our elderly, terminally ill cat euthanized. It was a sad but peaceful and end, brought about by giving our little friend a strong sedative before a final overdose of barbiturates. Afterward, I asked the doctor why human execution is so difficult. He said that it's like so many other parts of life - lawyers get involved - and that any veterinarian could make it simple, fast, and pain free.
Whether you agree with capital punishment or not, maybe that's the solution.
Whether you agree with capital punishment or not, maybe that's the solution.
1
Oh, the things we could do without impractical principles and ethics getting in the way.
In principle you oppose capital punishment but in practice it is okay to participate to "act as a safeguard against brutality." Is it really reasonable to equate the condemned to "terminally ill" patients? Are executions medical procedures in need of doctor supervision?
Medicalizing executions to make them more palatable to the state (what we are really talking about) is antithetical to the practice of medicine. Capital punishment is not a forgone conclusion but a practice that can be changed. This is one of those times when doctors should "slam the door."
In principle you oppose capital punishment but in practice it is okay to participate to "act as a safeguard against brutality." Is it really reasonable to equate the condemned to "terminally ill" patients? Are executions medical procedures in need of doctor supervision?
Medicalizing executions to make them more palatable to the state (what we are really talking about) is antithetical to the practice of medicine. Capital punishment is not a forgone conclusion but a practice that can be changed. This is one of those times when doctors should "slam the door."
3
They couldn't have executions if doctors refused to participate. The state should not play God by killing people and doctors should unite in opposing this in accordance with the Hippocratic Oath.
7
it's been shown that innocent people has been executed. With that risk in mind, how does a physician justify actively participate in executions? Obviously, the writer has found a way to justify his participation to himself. That is not the same as the rest of us, let alone the AMA, needs to concur.
Right. And it's justifiable to have doctors present during torture sessions, I mean, to ensure that there is no undue suffering. Sheesh!
4
There is something strangely puzzling about a doctor who opposes the death penalty arguing for a better way to do it.
6
It is shocking to me that this charlatan can, in the very same article that he describes the need to participate in an execution, state that he should be there to alleviate suffering. Is he volunteering or suggesting that he is available to participate? Or is he simply trying to build a moral justification for others to soothe their psyches? Himmler would be proud.
7
I believe it's the ultimate hypocrisy to worry about "suffering" as you are doing the worst thing you can do to person, killing them. That aside, if you can hold both those ideas together, as many Americans seem to, then allowing an anesthesiologist to perform the execution is the best choice. An anesthesiologist is the best person to understand drugs that make you unconscious and paralyze you before the lethal injection of potassium.
I don't believe the state should ever be allowed to kill someone but that's not the country I live in. We have an overwhelmingly high percentage of "Christians" in the USA that are pro-death penalty. So go figure.
I don't believe the state should ever be allowed to kill someone but that's not the country I live in. We have an overwhelmingly high percentage of "Christians" in the USA that are pro-death penalty. So go figure.
Can't say I agree. I feel soiled and complicit for simply living in a country that might use my tax dollars to willfully kill.
I'd feel a lot more soiled and complicit if I were both helping to kill and making it easier for people to look away from executions and dream that is something akin euthanizing an old, sick pet. We aren't sending these prisoners to live on a farm in the country.
"First do no harm" has to mean not actively killing people. Even people who are likely evil and have no place in a civilized world. We keep them imprisoned, and leave the fate of their soul to God, not people.
I'd feel a lot more soiled and complicit if I were both helping to kill and making it easier for people to look away from executions and dream that is something akin euthanizing an old, sick pet. We aren't sending these prisoners to live on a farm in the country.
"First do no harm" has to mean not actively killing people. Even people who are likely evil and have no place in a civilized world. We keep them imprisoned, and leave the fate of their soul to God, not people.
1
I can imagine Dr Mengele making a similar argument, that his "research" was intended to prevent the suffering of the higher order. I disagree with both.
11
Doctors who participate in executions are legitimizing State-sponsored murder.
Would Sandeep Jauhar, although he may oppose torture "as a matter of principle" also argue that doctors should be present during torture sessions in order to "alleviate" the suffering of the victims?
Doctors are supposed to be healers, not complicit in murder or other acts of violence.
Shame on him.
Would Sandeep Jauhar, although he may oppose torture "as a matter of principle" also argue that doctors should be present during torture sessions in order to "alleviate" the suffering of the victims?
Doctors are supposed to be healers, not complicit in murder or other acts of violence.
Shame on him.
20
It is comforting to know that the drugs used in an execution are "off label". Physicians should not participate in state-condoned murder, and pharmaceutical companies should not deliver drugs that can be used in executions. Many crimes committed are indeed heinous, but life in prison without the chance of parole is the better option.
1
Setting aside the whole moral and ethical issues I've never understood these cocktails of different drugs being essential for executions. While it may not be an appropriate comparison I, and many others, have had the difficult task of putting a pet dog down. Veterinarians use one drug that initially puts the dog to sleep quietly and then is given in sufficient quantity to cause an overdose. The animals never stir. I can't help thinking the "gruesome" example of the supposedly botched execution in Oklahoma in 2014 could probably be laid on the doorstep of legislators around the country who've made lethal executions a lot more complicated than necessary.
5
Eliminate suffering? Really? I am not a death penalty advocate, in fact, I think that it robs justice rather than fulfills it as a life in prison without even a shred of a chance of exit means the punished remains punished in this life.
But if the argument is that of elimination of suffering, then why, oh why cannot a terminal cancer patient or others suffering greatly cannot choose to end their lives with some dignity and without suffering a long and brutal end by chemical means with the assistance of a physician? I've witnessed that suffering first hand, too many times. That is true cruel and unusual punishment.
But if the argument is that of elimination of suffering, then why, oh why cannot a terminal cancer patient or others suffering greatly cannot choose to end their lives with some dignity and without suffering a long and brutal end by chemical means with the assistance of a physician? I've witnessed that suffering first hand, too many times. That is true cruel and unusual punishment.
4
This is nonsense. The basic idea of the death penalty is to kill people. If I knew that my doctor had participated in such a procedure, I would go elsewhere.
16
Such a marginal ethical argument. "Humane support of state euthanasia" seems to be his op ed logic. Slowly the US will get to a place where the death penalty is no longer practiced. I am curious as to his op ed view of a system that also treats severe mental illness so the person can be "well" enough to then be executed.
If patient care is now the province of physician assistants and nurses, why require a doctor at an execution (or, for that matter, a torture session)?
After the Final Solution, the ethics-quiz answer to medical participation at executions is it's just plain wrong. The answer to the "death penalty" is it may be satisfying in the sense of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," but it does NOT prevent or lessen the occurrence of crime.
After the Final Solution, the ethics-quiz answer to medical participation at executions is it's just plain wrong. The answer to the "death penalty" is it may be satisfying in the sense of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," but it does NOT prevent or lessen the occurrence of crime.
4
It is the height of hypocrisy when a society expects a physician to participate in the execution of a helpless person, but forbids the same physician from helping a person who wants to die.
A physician who participates in the execution of a helpless person has certainly lost his moral compass, as s/he is legitimizing the process.
A physician who participates in the execution of a helpless person has certainly lost his moral compass, as s/he is legitimizing the process.
14
Wow, what utter nonsense.
Death row inmates do not have a terminal disease. They are being terminated by the State.
The author's opinion would have been celebrated by Dr Josef Mengele.
Death row inmates do not have a terminal disease. They are being terminated by the State.
The author's opinion would have been celebrated by Dr Josef Mengele.
28
I am against the death penalty, but there is a difference between the execution of a convicted criminal and the attempted extermination of a group of people. When one invokes the "Nazi" comparison they're not interested in a discussion: they're using an extreme example to shut down discussion.
1
Tough issue, especially if the death penalty is vengeance/thirst for justice ('eye for eye'). Abolishing the death penalty would solve this slippery slope. Abortions, likewise, are the surgical removal of developing life in a human being, where a physician participates, abhorred by some but viewed as pragmatic, for multiple 'reasons', by others. Some of us believe euthanasia has its place when life becomes unbearable (a whole different sac of worms), also a controversial subject. But I digress. If the death penalty is not ousted, then one must consider a firing squad (all shooters shoot but only one of them has the real bullet), or by hanging (Ugh!); or the guillotine, anybody? This way, physician participation to make sure there is no 'physical' suffering, may become a moot point. Just a reminder, speaking about inflicting unnecessary pain; we humans are the only one's who have the distinct "privilege" of torturing our victims before the kill, an irredeemable process we do not seem able, or willing, to avoid. Incidentally, with the marvels of today's technology, I am sure we'll build robots capable of 'killing', with whatever we humans choose to instruct them, likely painlessly, if that is the aim. Does anybody smell hypocrisy here?
2
As a pain and palliative care physician, I have watched as my drugs speed up the death of patients. ALL of whom were suffering from horrendous and intractable pain from some terrible cancer. The only moral and ethical justification of taking that risk of hastening death was that leaving the pain and suffering untreated was worse and that all possibilities of cure were gone. In cases of execution, the intention is death itself, with only perfunctory concern for palliating pain or suffering. The cause of death is a man-made execution order, not an incurable disease. In that case, the physician IS the executioner, as there is no other purpose for administering the drugs. It is disingenuous to invoke anesthesiology or palliative principles as a rationale for involving physicians in executions.
179
Sorry, Dr. Jauhar: There is no moral quandary here, only the moral quagmire in which you find yourself.
Please: if you're going to (re)write this tired opinion piece, at least know what you're talking about.
The AMA rules may have no teeth, and the state medical licensing boards may have no balls; but certain medical specialty boards, such as Anesthesiology, do have both the moral clear-sightedness to prohibit their diplomates from being involved in any aspect of an execution; and the enforcement threat of revoking board certification, and thus the hospital privileges of their physicians who violate these rules, which are directly adopted from those of the AMA.
Just ask UMass anesthesiology prof and formerly-ubiquitous state's expert witness in charge of okaying execution drugs, including Midazolam: Dr. Mark Dershwitz, MD PhD. He is no longer providing this testimony, reportedly because the Board of Anesthesiology threatened sanctions if he did not desist.
The Arkansas prison physician who (allegedly fraudulently) obtained lethal injection drugs from distributors who refuse to knowingly sell them for such purposes, should be named, shamed, and, if s/he is the member of a specialty whose board prohibits participation in executions, sanctioned by his/her specialty board.
Please: if you're going to (re)write this tired opinion piece, at least know what you're talking about.
The AMA rules may have no teeth, and the state medical licensing boards may have no balls; but certain medical specialty boards, such as Anesthesiology, do have both the moral clear-sightedness to prohibit their diplomates from being involved in any aspect of an execution; and the enforcement threat of revoking board certification, and thus the hospital privileges of their physicians who violate these rules, which are directly adopted from those of the AMA.
Just ask UMass anesthesiology prof and formerly-ubiquitous state's expert witness in charge of okaying execution drugs, including Midazolam: Dr. Mark Dershwitz, MD PhD. He is no longer providing this testimony, reportedly because the Board of Anesthesiology threatened sanctions if he did not desist.
The Arkansas prison physician who (allegedly fraudulently) obtained lethal injection drugs from distributors who refuse to knowingly sell them for such purposes, should be named, shamed, and, if s/he is the member of a specialty whose board prohibits participation in executions, sanctioned by his/her specialty board.
Sorry, Dr. Jauhar: There is no moral quandary here, only the moral quagmire into which you've into yourself.
Please: if you're going to write this tired opinion piece (Atul Gawande made these same arguments years ago, then re-considered), at least know what you're talking about.
The AMA rules may have no teeth, and the state medical licensing boards may have no balls; but certain medical specialty boards, such as Anesthesiology, do have both the moral clear-sightedness to prohibit their diplomates from being involved in any aspect of an execution; and the enforcement threat of revoking board certification, and thus the hospital privileges of their physicians who violate these rules, which are directly adopted from those of the AMA.
Just ask UMass anesthesiology prof and formerly-ubiquitous state's expert witness in charge of okaying execution drugs, including Midazolam: Dr. Mark Dershwitz, MD PhD. He is no longer providing this testimony, reportedly because the Board of Anesthesiology threatened sanctions if he did not desist.
The Arkansas prison physician who (allegedly fraudulently) obtained lethal injection drugs from distributors who refuse to knowingly sell them for such purposes, should be named, shamed, and, if s/he is the member of a specialty whose board prohibits participation in executions, sanctioned by his/her specialty board.
Please: if you're going to write this tired opinion piece (Atul Gawande made these same arguments years ago, then re-considered), at least know what you're talking about.
The AMA rules may have no teeth, and the state medical licensing boards may have no balls; but certain medical specialty boards, such as Anesthesiology, do have both the moral clear-sightedness to prohibit their diplomates from being involved in any aspect of an execution; and the enforcement threat of revoking board certification, and thus the hospital privileges of their physicians who violate these rules, which are directly adopted from those of the AMA.
Just ask UMass anesthesiology prof and formerly-ubiquitous state's expert witness in charge of okaying execution drugs, including Midazolam: Dr. Mark Dershwitz, MD PhD. He is no longer providing this testimony, reportedly because the Board of Anesthesiology threatened sanctions if he did not desist.
The Arkansas prison physician who (allegedly fraudulently) obtained lethal injection drugs from distributors who refuse to knowingly sell them for such purposes, should be named, shamed, and, if s/he is the member of a specialty whose board prohibits participation in executions, sanctioned by his/her specialty board.
14
The physician in the Clayton Lockett execution botched the injection because most medical doctors as general practitioners often have less practice in technical IV insertions than medical techs or nurses who take our vitals ---- usually before our doctors see us.
As for the threat that states will resort to more brutal execution methods than lethal injection, if M.D.'s do not assist the state's procedure, note that in Saudi Arabia's beheadings, surgeons advise the swordsman where to aim his cutlass on the condemned's neck.
The only way for us to get rid of capital punishment politically is to offer an alternative punishment equally retributive. And we find it, ironically, in the 13th Amendment's clause that slavery is permissible for crimes. Enslaving someone for life is a form of social execution as well as social death. And that seems civilized. Otherwise, keep physicians out of executions.
As for the threat that states will resort to more brutal execution methods than lethal injection, if M.D.'s do not assist the state's procedure, note that in Saudi Arabia's beheadings, surgeons advise the swordsman where to aim his cutlass on the condemned's neck.
The only way for us to get rid of capital punishment politically is to offer an alternative punishment equally retributive. And we find it, ironically, in the 13th Amendment's clause that slavery is permissible for crimes. Enslaving someone for life is a form of social execution as well as social death. And that seems civilized. Otherwise, keep physicians out of executions.
Whilst a physician may be able to perform a harmful act with less pain than a non-physician would, this cannot justify the physician taking part.
The comparison with a palliative care doctor providing comfort from terminal illness is a false one; illness is an inevitable part of life, execution is not.
Compare this to, for example, female genital mutilation; most would oppose it as a matter of principle. Your argument would support doctors performing this barbarism to prevent potential suffering. However, medical complicity lends a veneer of respectability to acts which mustn't be tolerated.
The answer is simple; don't execute people.
The comparison with a palliative care doctor providing comfort from terminal illness is a false one; illness is an inevitable part of life, execution is not.
Compare this to, for example, female genital mutilation; most would oppose it as a matter of principle. Your argument would support doctors performing this barbarism to prevent potential suffering. However, medical complicity lends a veneer of respectability to acts which mustn't be tolerated.
The answer is simple; don't execute people.
3
You could extend that argument to say that doctors should also participate in torture, "to alleviate suffering." In these cases there would be no suffering without the state's actions, and physician action makes the suffering possible.
The difference between participating in executions and helping the terminally ill is that the doctor has been fighting the illness and is helping someone who is succumbing to intractable natural causes. In these cases the patient or family participates in decision making and consents. The person being executed has no voice in the decision or method of execution.
The difference between participating in executions and helping the terminally ill is that the doctor has been fighting the illness and is helping someone who is succumbing to intractable natural causes. In these cases the patient or family participates in decision making and consents. The person being executed has no voice in the decision or method of execution.
The same diseased thinking will hold then for doctors assisting torturers and government mutilations such as chopping off hands for theft or noses for prostitution. If a doctor does this, I want his license to practice stamped with the fact
1
Funny, none of the countries with execution torture themselves with this issue. They hang or shoot or cut head off. No decades of waiting appeals either.
The irony is that the US, with these tortured debates and lengthy appeals, not to mention foot-dragging even when people vote for speedy executions, ensures its death penalty one and only one thing: will always be cruel and inhuman, to both perpetrators and also survivors of the victims. Even when they are never carried out. Go figure. There is however, an easier way. Outsource to China. Hurry up.
The irony is that the US, with these tortured debates and lengthy appeals, not to mention foot-dragging even when people vote for speedy executions, ensures its death penalty one and only one thing: will always be cruel and inhuman, to both perpetrators and also survivors of the victims. Even when they are never carried out. Go figure. There is however, an easier way. Outsource to China. Hurry up.
1
20th century history should give physicians and any other profession devoted to healing pause when deciding to use our skills to participate in endeavors of the state devoted to punishment.
Robert Jay Lifton's The Nazi Doctors explains the ways with which a society perverted a healing profession into one participating and eventually playing a crucial role in the most monstrous force for evil in history.
We need to stay far away from such endeavors.
Robert Jay Lifton's The Nazi Doctors explains the ways with which a society perverted a healing profession into one participating and eventually playing a crucial role in the most monstrous force for evil in history.
We need to stay far away from such endeavors.
1
I'm also a physician. The writer is well intentioned and I appreciate his views. But we physicians are under no obligation to treat anyone. And that includes assisting with state-sponsored murder. The real answer is to work to make capital punishment something that is relegated to the pages of history. Physicians are under no obligation to help the state do something immoral and unjust even if our presence may reduce suffering to a degree. Physicians assisted the Nazi state and I'm sure some of them had their own "altruistic" rationalizations. Much as I'm no fan of the AMA, they're quite correct here.
1
The the time for physicians to get involved in the death penalty is for medical geneticists to critically examine DNA evidence and make sure that the process and interpretation are correct. It is criminal to leave a highly technical analysis in the judgement of lawyers, lab techs and a jury who only have a vague idea what DNA is, and prosecutors thinking about their next election campaign.
Ask yourself, if I were on a capital jury today, could I properly interpret testimony about allele frequency, restriction mapping, SNPs and spontaneous mutations?
The number of people who are wrongly convicted is staggering, and we can't even start the conversation about the necessity and morality of the death penalty until we are 100% sure that we are talking about killing a guilty person.
Ask yourself, if I were on a capital jury today, could I properly interpret testimony about allele frequency, restriction mapping, SNPs and spontaneous mutations?
The number of people who are wrongly convicted is staggering, and we can't even start the conversation about the necessity and morality of the death penalty until we are 100% sure that we are talking about killing a guilty person.
1
"It is not a stretch to think of death-row inmates who have exhausted their appeals as having a terminal disease with 100 percent mortality."
Yes, sir, it is a stretch. The difference is the patient is being attacked by a disease, a microbe, a cancer while the convict is being attacked by you acting as an agent of the state. You cannot avoid the fact that absent you, the convict would not die by your hand.
Since we all have a terminal disease with 100 percent mortality--we call it being alive--your argument would also encompass euthanasia as well.
The morally clean, less expensive, more just and less irreversible course is life in prison without the prospect of parole.
As a physician myself, I have seen all manner of death, save execution. I am pleased to have missed that exit.
Yes, sir, it is a stretch. The difference is the patient is being attacked by a disease, a microbe, a cancer while the convict is being attacked by you acting as an agent of the state. You cannot avoid the fact that absent you, the convict would not die by your hand.
Since we all have a terminal disease with 100 percent mortality--we call it being alive--your argument would also encompass euthanasia as well.
The morally clean, less expensive, more just and less irreversible course is life in prison without the prospect of parole.
As a physician myself, I have seen all manner of death, save execution. I am pleased to have missed that exit.
1
An executions, when carried out instead of life imprisonment, is nothing more that a revenge killing. It is a primitive and savage reaction to an individual who has done wrong. When we wrap that savagery in the trappings of legal formality we are merely hiding what it really is. I honestly feel that if executions must be carried out, they should be carried out by the prosecuting attorney or the executive who approves the execution. They should kill the person with a knife or a blunt instrument and it should be televised. I am tired of these pious fools 'giving justice to the victims' while delegating the dirty work and obfuscating what is going on here - and eye for an eye.
5
It seems a wonder to me that a doctor could work up the enthusiasm required to oppose the AMA non-participatory stance. It's unlikely that he would be unique. The long time appeal of 'do no harm' is operating in a changed environment. The notion of minimizing suffering treats symptoms but often results in unintended consequences. What would happen if medical schools began offering programs in Execution Protocols? Might get through the course a lot sooner. Like celibacy for a priest, specialization might be best for an executioner. 'The condemned man ate a hearty meal' did not apply in this last case; he took communion instead. God bless.
1
I'd have to say that I disagree emphatically with Dr. Jauhar in this case. The role of physician to alleviate suffering applies to those patients who are terminally ill or suffer from chronic disease, not the suffering associated with executing a prisoner.
The AMA made one if its rare clear positions correctly. The act of execution is reflective of the wrong approach the country has taken toward the criminal justice system,especially in the south, where violent crimes rates have been studied to move independently of how prisoners are executed. This is not a deterrent to violent crime. This is not part of the job description, and any physician who is solicited to participate in this medieval act should run far away in the opposite direction.
The AMA made one if its rare clear positions correctly. The act of execution is reflective of the wrong approach the country has taken toward the criminal justice system,especially in the south, where violent crimes rates have been studied to move independently of how prisoners are executed. This is not a deterrent to violent crime. This is not part of the job description, and any physician who is solicited to participate in this medieval act should run far away in the opposite direction.
1
Perhaps a better solution would be to have doctors put those undergoing execution under anesthesia before any deadly drugs are administered. If death is inevitable, providing good palative care is justified.
"Doctors can act as a safeguard against this brutality." Yes, by refusing to participate in executions, by preventing our misguided colleagues from doing so and by working to end the cruel and unusual brutality of the death penalty. The analogy to end of life care for the terminally ill has no place here. I am an internist and hospice and palliative medicine physician.
16
As a physician and Arkansan, I respectfully disagree. I also happen to be a pathologist and know death. Some here and elsewhere have tried to make the connection between execution and physician-assisted suicide as if one must either oppose or support both. When Mr. Lee's death certificate was signed, the manner of death listed was undoubtedly homicide. In the case of physician-assisted suicide, the manner of death is just that, suicide. Maybe there's no difference to some people, but the difference is substantial to me. I don't think it is incongruous to support one and abhor the other. A physician-assisted suicide for an individual is not the same as physician-assisted homicide for the State.
14
The awful fact that you are from the south and that the south is responsible for the majority of executions is reason enough for me to object to your callous opinion. Suicide is sadness, execution is altogether a different set of emotions.
Comparing a terminal illness to state executions is ludicrous. We have little to no control over terminal illness and the suffering might want pain management or euthanasia. Few on death want to be there and state executions are 100% preventable. Just don't do them. I hope to never be in the care of this doctor. Will he propose that doctors assist in torture to minimize suffering too?
5
Difficult to believe this article is even needed; it should go without saying that doctors should not facilitate killing people. One wonders what the thought process is that allows some doctors to justify, in their own minds, deliberately causing death. I suppose it's a rationalization that includes moral judgements about the inmate or, my worst fear, the doctor's political leanings. My guess is doctors that would even consider this task are troubled indeed.
11
A physician at an execution is not there "providing comfort — spiritual or narcotic — to a terminally ill patient at the hour of death." He is there causing the death of a person who is otherwise physically healthy. Equating the two is a stretch far beyond my comfort range. And I would hope that it remains beyond the comfort range of the vast majority of physicians.
4
"Participating in executions does not make the doctor the executioner"
Really? then who is?
If I were inserting a needle into an individual while knowing that someone else would use the needle to infuse a lethal substance would make me still an accessory to murder.
Only very few states go to extraordinary lengths to execute people. And it might be the right thing for a doctor to do to curtail the state's ability to do wrong by not participating in it.
The lethal injection scheme came about from the viciousness of some people to see "an eye for an eye", but not being confronted with the reality of actually killing someone by, say, hanging or firing. This relates very much to our general aversion with death, which we see as a disease that can only be treated in a hospital.
Really? then who is?
If I were inserting a needle into an individual while knowing that someone else would use the needle to infuse a lethal substance would make me still an accessory to murder.
Only very few states go to extraordinary lengths to execute people. And it might be the right thing for a doctor to do to curtail the state's ability to do wrong by not participating in it.
The lethal injection scheme came about from the viciousness of some people to see "an eye for an eye", but not being confronted with the reality of actually killing someone by, say, hanging or firing. This relates very much to our general aversion with death, which we see as a disease that can only be treated in a hospital.
5
The insertion of IV lines does not create the ethical problem. Doctors have historically participated in executions to pronounce death, regardless of the execution method. A doctor violates his oath to do no harm when he informs the executioner that the patient is still alive. In such cases, the condemned prisoner suffers further harm at the doctor's direction.
I am ambivalent about whether the death penalty is moral. And there is the separate legal question of whether a particular method of execution violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Both questions require a case-by-case evaluation. But as to whether doctors should participate, the answer is clear. They should not participate.
I am ambivalent about whether the death penalty is moral. And there is the separate legal question of whether a particular method of execution violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Both questions require a case-by-case evaluation. But as to whether doctors should participate, the answer is clear. They should not participate.
1
Anyone can administer a needle a physician need not be present. Utilize a nurse; it will be less expense than a physician. People who kill multiple people should get the death penalty unless mentally ill. These people are not capable of being rehabilitated. Without it there is no deterrent and taxpayers should not be expected to pay the ridiculous cost
2
With it there is no deterrent, and the expense of multiple appeals far outweighs the expense of life imprisonment.
1
I am a physician who took the oath to 'Do No Harm'. Sometimes it is very difficult to know exactly what that means, but it seems clear that participation in the state mandated death of another human contravenes that mandate. Conflating the moral standing of participation in execution with that of providing comfort care to end-of-life patients is a ridiculously flawed analogy. Condemned prisoners are not terminally ill patients and there is no moral equivalence to be found. The only morally consistent approach for physicians is to refuse to participate in execution.
155
There is a deeper objection against doctors participating in executions. When a medical professional participates in a state's execution it legitimizes the state's framing of it as a humane and rational event. Killing someone is not rocket science, as the history of our violent species so readily proves. If as a society we actually believed in capital punishment we would take moral responsibility for it and do it like we did in former times: quickly, definitively, and in public. Instead we hide and routinize it in such a way that we cover up our own brutality, partly by insisting on the presence of a trusted member of the healing arts. The pain relief that a doctor's presence offers during an execution is not to the condemned but to our own wounded conscience.
101
Agreed. Let the public see the executions live in public, the way it used to be. Let crowds gather to witness the barbarity of their government. Let it prick their conscience and roam wild in their sleep.
Dr. Jauhar makes the simple complicated.
He asks us in the medical profession to choose between two principles:
Primum auxilium publica v. Primum non noncere
The first does not appear in any medical ethics or medical history text. The second is the key element of the Oath of Hippocrates, the oldest avowal of the medical profession still in use today.
Dr. Jauhar's position is not found in any accepted doctrine of medical practice, but it is a position held by our profession in various periods of history. Perhaps most sadly it appeared in the German state in the 1930s and 1940's (https://tinyurl.com/k93c4hu).
The first principle translates to First, Help the State. It calls on the medical profession to take its most dearly held value, to heal the sick, and apply it in the service of the state, no matter what cruelty the state has cooked up to do to its citizens and others in the world. This is no principle, but rather, a rationale for cruelty, the very definition of a perversion of a great value.
Really, to use healing to kill, the oldest trick in the book of a thuggish state.
How dare a doctor proposing to tell us the history of the human heart ask any doctor to help kill another person when the state comes knocking at our door to ask us to help out!
The second principle translates to First, Do No Harm. I am a pediatrician, and I know the families for whom I care for their children, all sleep better at night knowing I live by this one, not Dr. Jauhar's.
He asks us in the medical profession to choose between two principles:
Primum auxilium publica v. Primum non noncere
The first does not appear in any medical ethics or medical history text. The second is the key element of the Oath of Hippocrates, the oldest avowal of the medical profession still in use today.
Dr. Jauhar's position is not found in any accepted doctrine of medical practice, but it is a position held by our profession in various periods of history. Perhaps most sadly it appeared in the German state in the 1930s and 1940's (https://tinyurl.com/k93c4hu).
The first principle translates to First, Help the State. It calls on the medical profession to take its most dearly held value, to heal the sick, and apply it in the service of the state, no matter what cruelty the state has cooked up to do to its citizens and others in the world. This is no principle, but rather, a rationale for cruelty, the very definition of a perversion of a great value.
Really, to use healing to kill, the oldest trick in the book of a thuggish state.
How dare a doctor proposing to tell us the history of the human heart ask any doctor to help kill another person when the state comes knocking at our door to ask us to help out!
The second principle translates to First, Do No Harm. I am a pediatrician, and I know the families for whom I care for their children, all sleep better at night knowing I live by this one, not Dr. Jauhar's.
To equate being on death row with having a terminal illness with 100% mortality is a bit glib, considering this "terminal illness" is also 100% preventable and could actually be easily cured with the few strokes of a pen. I disagree that we need to be involved in executions to prevent suffering nor should any allied health professional.
Perhaps what we physicians need to do a better job of preventing the conditions leading to capital punishment. Currently our role is getting involved at the very end when there's nothing to do other than medicate an inmate to death instead of earlier in the "disease course" by working against mass incarceration, advocating for better education and access to the arts and helping create conditions that reduce risks for crimes and recidivism. Physician training has to move beyond pathophysiology and pharmacology and organized medicine needs to focus on matters beyond physician payment. But inserting an iv to ensure meds go in right and kill someone good? Nope.
Perhaps what we physicians need to do a better job of preventing the conditions leading to capital punishment. Currently our role is getting involved at the very end when there's nothing to do other than medicate an inmate to death instead of earlier in the "disease course" by working against mass incarceration, advocating for better education and access to the arts and helping create conditions that reduce risks for crimes and recidivism. Physician training has to move beyond pathophysiology and pharmacology and organized medicine needs to focus on matters beyond physician payment. But inserting an iv to ensure meds go in right and kill someone good? Nope.
1
As physicians our "mandate" is established not by some inchoate sense that the relief of suffering is our highest purpose, but by a combination of what our humanity drives us to do and what the law requires or permits us to do in society.
Please reconsider your premise: "Though I oppose capital punishment as a matter of principle, as a doctor I believe physician presence at executions is consistent with our mandate to alleviate suffering."
Implied by your statement is that suffering, not execution, is the driver requiring physician presence. How, then, does this apply to torture?
Physician participation in execution, like clergy participation, if it happens at all, should serve as a corrective. For the person awaiting execution suffering is long, intense, and not confined to the moment of being aware life is seeping away. The same may be said for those who are the victims of persons awaiting execution.
The best and highest use of physician skills in this domain would be to work to eliminate capital punishment. Add elimination of torture, too. Physicians may bind wounds and provide comfort all around but let us not kid ourselves: the purpose intended by those who employ capital punishment and torture as tools of power is to inflict suffering. Physician presence only serves to endorse this intent and, secondarily, assuage the guilt of executing state agents by providing a veneer of medical respectability.
Please reconsider your premise: "Though I oppose capital punishment as a matter of principle, as a doctor I believe physician presence at executions is consistent with our mandate to alleviate suffering."
Implied by your statement is that suffering, not execution, is the driver requiring physician presence. How, then, does this apply to torture?
Physician participation in execution, like clergy participation, if it happens at all, should serve as a corrective. For the person awaiting execution suffering is long, intense, and not confined to the moment of being aware life is seeping away. The same may be said for those who are the victims of persons awaiting execution.
The best and highest use of physician skills in this domain would be to work to eliminate capital punishment. Add elimination of torture, too. Physicians may bind wounds and provide comfort all around but let us not kid ourselves: the purpose intended by those who employ capital punishment and torture as tools of power is to inflict suffering. Physician presence only serves to endorse this intent and, secondarily, assuage the guilt of executing state agents by providing a veneer of medical respectability.
3
A more intellectually, ethically, and factually lazy essay on this subject I have never read.
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The Hippocratic Oath has two things to say with regard to this subject: "Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course" absolutely prohibits participating in execution by lethal injection. More importantly is the general prohibition against doing harm.
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No matter how you parse it, causing death is doing the ultimate harm to a person.
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If every doctor were honest with himself or herself not one would participate in executions. I wonder how that would affect governments' ability to execute prisoners?
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The Hippocratic Oath has two things to say with regard to this subject: "Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course" absolutely prohibits participating in execution by lethal injection. More importantly is the general prohibition against doing harm.
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No matter how you parse it, causing death is doing the ultimate harm to a person.
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If every doctor were honest with himself or herself not one would participate in executions. I wonder how that would affect governments' ability to execute prisoners?
27
If the main purpose is to correctly insert needles into the injection sites, better let a nurse do it. Doctors are actually far removed from such mundane chores and as a consequence are not practiced at it.
The only time I had a needle inserted by a doctor he got it in alright, but failed to properly secure the connection to the I.V. and blood slowly drained out of my body until a nurse saw what was happening and corrected the line connection.
The only time I had a needle inserted by a doctor he got it in alright, but failed to properly secure the connection to the I.V. and blood slowly drained out of my body until a nurse saw what was happening and corrected the line connection.
11
No decent nurse would participate.
I am a physician. I propose that any physician who has participated in an execution be required to tell his patients that he has done so. I think that they have a right to know this.
304
Why ? Should your doctor tell his/her other patient they are treating you ?
I like this! Let the free market Republicans worship speak!
I would further propose that any physician who believes it is his or her moral obligation to assist in the mitigation of undue suffering at the time of execution do a six month rotation in the Arkansas or Oklahoma correctional system, assisting at and then conducting such procedures. I encourage Dr. Jauhar to take this proposal personally.
This is well written but just wrong. Execution kills - it causes death intentionally and cooperating does not alleviate suffering; it causes death.
53
well said, bravo!
The only way to "alleviate suffering" in executing someone is to not do it.
208
What about keeping someone locked up in solitary confinement 10 to 30 years waiting to be executed. Also, what about the family members of the inmate and the family members of the victim. How do you propose to alleviate that suffering. The entire American criminal justice system is outdated and needs an overhaul.
First, do no harm....
36
Physicians should not participate in murder.
64
Legal execution is not murder, look up the definition.
It seems to me all the debate about the mechanics of an execution -- which drugs were used, if the condemned suffered, etc -- miss the point.
Executions are for people who have committed crimes that are so callous and so heinous that they have forfeited any claim on their own humanity. Society has lost interest in seeing them rehabilitated. We wish only to protect ourselves, in the most definitive way possible, from any further crimes the prisoner might commit.
As such, the only valid basis for an objection to capital punishment is if there is a question about their guilt, or the appropriateness of the punishment.
If the guilt is clear and the punishment appropriate, we don't need doctors to get involved. American slaughterhouses executed 31 Million cattle and 118 Million hogs in 2016. I'm sure the authorities can find a technician at one of those places who has the training and equipment to get the job done.
I'd hate to see cows and hogs suffer. After all, they have done nothing wrong. Fortunately, I'm pretty sure they don't. The sheer numbers of commercial farming require an execution process that is fast and reliable. What is good enough for an innocent cow ought to be good enough for a person guilty of a crime so evil they have lost their humanity.
Executions are for people who have committed crimes that are so callous and so heinous that they have forfeited any claim on their own humanity. Society has lost interest in seeing them rehabilitated. We wish only to protect ourselves, in the most definitive way possible, from any further crimes the prisoner might commit.
As such, the only valid basis for an objection to capital punishment is if there is a question about their guilt, or the appropriateness of the punishment.
If the guilt is clear and the punishment appropriate, we don't need doctors to get involved. American slaughterhouses executed 31 Million cattle and 118 Million hogs in 2016. I'm sure the authorities can find a technician at one of those places who has the training and equipment to get the job done.
I'd hate to see cows and hogs suffer. After all, they have done nothing wrong. Fortunately, I'm pretty sure they don't. The sheer numbers of commercial farming require an execution process that is fast and reliable. What is good enough for an innocent cow ought to be good enough for a person guilty of a crime so evil they have lost their humanity.
32
You have missed the point. The debate here isn't about "mechanics." It is about medical ethics. It is unethical for a physician to assist the state in executing a person, for whatever reason. Nearly all physicians agree with this. The widely-cited AMA rules, while unenforceable, specifically prohibit physicians from such involvement. Many medical specialty boards, including that of anesthesiologists, threaten their physician members with expulsion if they participate in any way in executions.
Doctors who do participate remain anonymous, their identities closely guarded by state laws. Why do you suppose that is? Do they fear violent retribution? Nonsense. They know that to have their names made public would shame them before their colleagues, their patients, and the entire civilized world.
Doctors who do participate remain anonymous, their identities closely guarded by state laws. Why do you suppose that is? Do they fear violent retribution? Nonsense. They know that to have their names made public would shame them before their colleagues, their patients, and the entire civilized world.
5
Nobody,
You say "Executions are for people who have committed crimes that are so callous and so heinous that they have forfeited any claim on their own humanity." The problem is that, so far at least, we have not been able to ensure that the people convicted are always the ones who actually committed the crime. Innocent people have been executed. Are you OK with that?
You say "Executions are for people who have committed crimes that are so callous and so heinous that they have forfeited any claim on their own humanity." The problem is that, so far at least, we have not been able to ensure that the people convicted are always the ones who actually committed the crime. Innocent people have been executed. Are you OK with that?
Nobody ever loses their humanity, no matter what they do, there is always the possibility of redemption. Or as the profound Sister Helen Prejean said, "people are more than the worst thing they have ever done in their lives." Life in prison for these people keeps others safe, we don't need to become murderers, too. The point of a slaughterhouse is killing to eat. It is the circle of life. Not so for state executions. But also, just because we treat animals poorly doesn't mean we should treat people poorly. Unless you'd like the rest of us to treat you like an animal; I suspect you would not, so don't ask us to treat others like animals. These aren't the social norms we live in so enough nonsense.
I would rather be tied to a post and shot through the head and heart by expert, volunteer, civilian marksmen than strapped to a gurney and put to sleep like a terminally-ill cat because the latter seems somehow, in politicians' and judges' minds, more humane, hygienic, optically antiseptic and thus less objectionable. Killing is killing. There is either good reason to kill or not (outside the U.S. we seem to apply a standard I have yet to discern). If we are going to be humane let's get the job done in a few years or just let it go. The legislative, judicial, gubernatorial and general (but typical) state incompetence is giving me a headache.
28
With the exception of a handful of nations -- Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, etc. -- the 'standard' for execution 'outside the US' is quite easy to 'discern': most of the world thinks capital punishment is barbaric and they no longer practice it.
Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia...
Nice company.
Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia...
Nice company.
The AMA position is correct. Wrapping execution in the trappings of medicine gives it a veneer of humanity that it does not deserve. Doctors should not participate.
This author also favors physician participation in euthanasia. Perhaps he supports physician involvement in executions because he recognizes that it would be irrational to support one and not the other.
It is more rational to oppose both. Doctors cannot participate in any form of human killing and retain their integrity as a profession and the trust of the public.
This author also favors physician participation in euthanasia. Perhaps he supports physician involvement in executions because he recognizes that it would be irrational to support one and not the other.
It is more rational to oppose both. Doctors cannot participate in any form of human killing and retain their integrity as a profession and the trust of the public.
98
This reminds me of Hitler's Euthanasia program. Hitler needed Germany's official medical organizations to go along with and ethically validate his Euthanasia program so as to pass it off to the public as a legitimate program instead of the murder that it really was. He was using it to kill state hospital patients to save money for his war machine. The good doctors refused to participate though without some sort of legally official public authorization from Hitler. He wrote a public letter/statement to same stating that he was providing the medical community the authority to 'grant' suffers a merciful death. That's all the good doctors needed to begin clearing the hospitals of all those expensive patients who couldn't say no. That 'deal with the devil' sounds like the one this guy is advocating. Amazingly, you can get true professionals to agree to just about any kind of atrocity more easily than you can a ditch digger in many situations. It was the Department of Justice that gave us authorization for torture under Bush with it's now infamous 'torture memos'. Those experts in law and justice have consistently enabled some of the most abominable crimes against humanity ever perpetrated.
1
In my opinion, it is not at all irrational to support what you call euthanasia, which these days means physician-assisted death, while opposing executions. Euthanasia (physician-assisted death) is, after all, voluntary on the part of the person who wishes to die; it is an act of mercy. Execution is not voluntary, but rather forced and partaken as more of an act of revenge than of mercy.
Assisting the State in developing "cleaner" executions will only result in more "cleaner" executions.
130
By citing the positions of the AMA and the American Society of Anesthsiologists this author implies that these groups are in some way representative of medical opinion. Approximately 85% of practicing US doctors are not members of the AMA. The American Society of Anesthsiologists represent a speciality comprising less than 5% of US physicians. For the majority, a physician's choice to participate in executions is based on his or her own conscience.
3
Right! And the best lawyers can argue an innocent man onto death row. After all, that's what lawyers do--use their best skills for their clients!
1
There is no "moral quandary" on this subject, physicians should never, ever participate in executions. As a patient, I would never use a doctor who I knew had participated in an execution.
Assisting in an efficient and painless process of killing someone is not the job of a physician.
Assisting in an efficient and painless process of killing someone is not the job of a physician.
24
Doctors should not participate in executions because they do not know the law. Doctors should not take part in executions because an execution is not a natural normal medical health event. Doctors should not participate in executions because capital punishment like prison is an expression of white supremacist bigotry.
Mr. Ledell Lee was the victim of the carefully carved colored exception to the 13th Amendment's abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude. At Mr. Lee's trial the judge was having a secret affair with the state prosecutor whom he later married At his post conviction hearing his attorney was inebriated and failed to bring up the bias of the trial judge. Judicial bias and ineffective counsel are grounds for relief. Mr. Lee denied he committed the crime and requested DNA evidence.
I am opposed to the death penalty on moral grounds. I am opposed to the death penalty as being cruel and unusual punishment that is fickle and unjust in imposition and application.
Mr. Ledell Lee was the victim of the carefully carved colored exception to the 13th Amendment's abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude. At Mr. Lee's trial the judge was having a secret affair with the state prosecutor whom he later married At his post conviction hearing his attorney was inebriated and failed to bring up the bias of the trial judge. Judicial bias and ineffective counsel are grounds for relief. Mr. Lee denied he committed the crime and requested DNA evidence.
I am opposed to the death penalty on moral grounds. I am opposed to the death penalty as being cruel and unusual punishment that is fickle and unjust in imposition and application.
38
This is about the most morally reprehensible position one could take. "Well, they were going to die anyway" is a refrain echoed throughout history. When you assist the butchers, you become one of them. We pretty much resolved that in the Nuremberg trials, one outcome of which was the Belmont report and the concept of informed consent. Those terminal patients that the doctor equates with death row inmates at least give consent, or their caregivers do. It is unethical to administer lethal drugs to an individuals against their consent, regardless of what the state says. The AMA is right and any licensed physician participating in state sanctioned executions should lose his license.
59
Physicians who participate in executions should lose their medical licenses. It is ethically unacceptable for a doctor to be a component in a states sordid death machine. The capricious nature of who gets executed is a national disgrace. The number of variables is exponential. Scores of inmates on death row have been exonerated by DNA testing. It is a certainty that innocent men have been executed. The execution of one innocent man is one too many. Dr. Jauhar apparently doesn't comprehend the moral obtuseness of helping facilitate a profanation of "equal justice under law", that indelibly stains the medical profession.
23
There's an ethical vacuum at the core of this essay. Dr. Jauhar believes physicans should be present at executions in order to alleviate suffering. But whose suffering is at issue? Isn't death by execution in itself a severe form of suffering? It probably made some brief difference to Clayton Lockett that he died in terrible pain. But the spectacle of painful death that Dr. Jauhar describes is of greater consequence to those who view it. The real aim of physician-assisted execution, then, is to alleviate the suffering of those witnessing it. Maybe if those watching an execution suffered more they'd be less willing to commit it. So what Dr. Jauhar advocates, despite his avowed opposition to the death penalty, is in fact its facilitation. For the sake of humanitarianism, let's declare a moratorium on his brand of "ethics."
While Dr. Jauhar is correct that physicians should alleviate suffering, it is also true that doctors should do no harm. Certainly execution is harmful to an individual. A similar argument could be made regarding physician participation in torture, which is also considered unethical by the AMA. Physicians by their ethical code may at times be in conflict with laws or regulations and the AMA position, well principled as Dr. Jauhar notes, helps in these difficult dilemmas. The purpose of the AMA position is not to end executions but to clearly articulate what the physician's role should be.
5
Whenever I hear of a botched execution I think about how easy it would have been for someone to end my life when I have been anesthetized. I come out of each colonoscopy wondering what happened in the last hour without my approval or awareness. I can think of worse deaths then having to count back from 10. And I don't know anyone who wouldn't prefer to die peacefully with just 10 seconds left before life gets painful. That being said, doctors would have to participate, to make sure that death is quick and painless. The case for executing people will die of it's own merits, until then, we know how to make it painless.
Dr. Jauhar's logic invoking the "duty to relieve suffering" would, by extension, justify participation by physicians in all manner of state-dictated modes of punishment, such as torture, food deprivation, lashing, and amputation of hands. Participation constitutes tacit approval. Physicians' refusal to participate in execution sends a strong statement both to officials and to society at large that human life is sacred and that no variety of murder is acceptable.
If doctors are allowed to legally assist and participate in state sanctioned executions, state legislatures and federal law should allow doctors to participate in assisted suicide requests from terminally ill patients that wish to end their lives. The right to die is a personal choice and a patient should have the right to choose that option with a doctors assistance. Doctors who choose to assist these patients to end their lives should legally be allowed to assist if they so agree with the patients wishes.
1
"The American Medical Association, however, strongly opposes physician participation in executions on ethical grounds."
This "puts the medical and penal system at odds".
Simple answer is to change the penal system. Either do away with capital punishment, or if we really want to the state to kill people, use other tried and trusted methods that leave doctors out of the equation.
This "puts the medical and penal system at odds".
Simple answer is to change the penal system. Either do away with capital punishment, or if we really want to the state to kill people, use other tried and trusted methods that leave doctors out of the equation.
4
physicians should not participate in executions. While I understand the conern with reducing suffering, I believe that participating in executions is an implicit approval. Physicians are responsible for curing and treating disease, making patients comfortable when cure is not possible. But they are not charged with conducting executions.
1
I wonder what human endeavor would not fall under this logic. Well, no I don't wonder. It's clear that every activity, however horrific, would need an attending physician to make sure that things go smoothly.
But what is the state to do without the physician's imprimatur? How can they go on? Terribly inhumane without a doc there to fix whatever crisis arise. Terribly inhumane! Good thing the good Doc is there to make sure the execution is professionally procured. It would be just an awful thing without him.
But what is the state to do without the physician's imprimatur? How can they go on? Terribly inhumane without a doc there to fix whatever crisis arise. Terribly inhumane! Good thing the good Doc is there to make sure the execution is professionally procured. It would be just an awful thing without him.
1
I'm still not clear why they can't simply use a lethal dose of morphine. It doesn't even have to be administered intravenously. It can be injected subcutaneously, or even given orally, neither of which requires expertise. There's guaranteed death, and there's no pain — the person simply falls asleep permanently. Why make it more complicated than it has to be?
3
I would suggest that a lethal dose of morphine does not satisfy the need for revenge.
Although, an even more basic reason may be to justify some bureaucrat's job.
Although, an even more basic reason may be to justify some bureaucrat's job.
Wouldn't it be relatively easy to employ Electroencephalography (EEG) during the execution to decide once and for all if there is any undue pain and suffering? If we are going to continue with barbaric practices at least use some modern science to ensure we are doing nothing "cruel and unusual".
You are insane: "Though I oppose capital punishment as a matter of principle, as a doctor I believe physician presence at executions is consistent with our mandate to alleviate suffering." Your mandate is to "first, do no harm." The killing of a healthy human being is harm -- let us set aside the issue of voluntary end-of-life decisions -- to oppose the death penalty ought to mean to refuse to participate in it in any way. Being present to "alleviate suffering" is supporting it. Ethics 101.
I would remind Dr. Jauhar of the oath of Hippocrates -"Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course" - which clearly proscribes this position. Being on death row does not equate to the sentence of a terminal illness. The presence of physicians at executions to relieve the agonal suffering of the condemned will only serve to add a veneer of humanity to what is a barbaric act.
3
My first question would be: specifically what measures could a physician actually take to ensure a painless death during an execution given that the law allows for 1-3 medications only? Other than establishing an IV line and injecting the available drugs (which can be done just as well - if not better as most physicians don't spend all their time inserting IV lines anymore - by an experienced EMT) I see little room to manoeuvre other than increasing dosage(s). A physician's job should not be to assist in an unethical procedure in particular when they have little to no control over the protocol.
1
It always amazes me how people who generally hate government and think it can do nothing right want to give the power of life and death to a process run by elected officials, cops and a committee. We know innocent people get killed. It's murder by committee and yes, we are all complicit. It's not about the criminal or the crime, it's about what kind of people we are.
17
Sandeep Jauhar (I can't bring myself to call him "doctor") argues that participating in the murder of a helpless human being, safely in custody and incapable of escape, is acceptable for him as a doctor because, hey,
"If I don't do it, someone else will."
That's the long and short of it. It does not occur to him, he does not want to think, that if every doctor refused to participate in the state-sponsored murder of helpless human beings, regardless of what those human beings have done in the past, that the pace of executions would slow or halt entirely. That as state legislators then try to pass legislation allowing states to murder helpless prisoners without the benefit of physician supervision, that the cruelty of state murder would be further exposed for the purpose of ending it by arguing for the conversion of all death sentences to life imprisonment.
Shame on him.
"If I don't do it, someone else will."
That's the long and short of it. It does not occur to him, he does not want to think, that if every doctor refused to participate in the state-sponsored murder of helpless human beings, regardless of what those human beings have done in the past, that the pace of executions would slow or halt entirely. That as state legislators then try to pass legislation allowing states to murder helpless prisoners without the benefit of physician supervision, that the cruelty of state murder would be further exposed for the purpose of ending it by arguing for the conversion of all death sentences to life imprisonment.
Shame on him.
As a professor of palliative medicine, I strongly reject the idea of condoning physician participation in what is just one of the many barbaric practices of the US judiciary system. The A.M.A.’s standpoint is the only ethically justifiable standpoint for a profession rooted in the Oath of Hippocrates. Physician participation in executions would run against the basic principles of the medical profession, and – if possible – even more against the principles of palliative care. Doctors have a duty to relieve suffering, not to assist in killing.
7
While the idea seems ok, I think it is a bad idea.
let the states choose more crude methods. it will make it more likely that it would be even less popular or be found unconstitutional.
let the states choose more crude methods. it will make it more likely that it would be even less popular or be found unconstitutional.
3
While I don't agree with the death penalty because of the prisoners who were discovered to be innocent with the introduction of DNA testing; I do recognize that until we pass laws making it illegal prisoners have the right to a humane execution. When a doctor overseas an execution there's less chance that the execution will be allowed to be dragged out if something goes wrong. The Hippocratic oath prevents them from allowing a condemned person to needlessly suffer.
Otherwise we might as well go back to the days when we used firing squads, electrocution, or the gas chamber to execute our death row inmates. We moved away from these methods because they are barbaric and we found more humane methods to end someone's life.
Less than half of Americans support the death penalty. California shows that life in prison is cheaper than the death penalty. Cases without the death penalty are $740,000 while those with the death penalty are 1.26 million. I can think of way better things to spend $500,000 on.
Besides, the guilty deserve to live their lives knowing they will never be free. The death penalty ends their suffering.
Otherwise we might as well go back to the days when we used firing squads, electrocution, or the gas chamber to execute our death row inmates. We moved away from these methods because they are barbaric and we found more humane methods to end someone's life.
Less than half of Americans support the death penalty. California shows that life in prison is cheaper than the death penalty. Cases without the death penalty are $740,000 while those with the death penalty are 1.26 million. I can think of way better things to spend $500,000 on.
Besides, the guilty deserve to live their lives knowing they will never be free. The death penalty ends their suffering.
I disagree. Mr. Jauhar writes "Barring doctors from executions will only increase the risk that prisoners will unduly suffer." That may be true, but the cause of that suffering is not the physicians who are not attending. It is directly caused by the state which mandates the execution and which administers the drugs. Mr. Jauhar's reasoning will make physicians complicit with and enabling of executions. Perhaps he would argue that physicians should also accompany murderers in their crime, for there too, they might avert suffering by hastening death. I hope not - but who knows?
3
You do a very good job of describing the dilemma. However I disagree with one important point.
"Discouraging physician participation, as the American Medical Association does, will not lead to a ban on capital punishment or lethal injection."
The vocal and visible support for ending capital punishment by respected groups like the AMA helps to shift the social view on capital punishment. By refusing to participate they do indeed move us closer to a ban.
"Discouraging physician participation, as the American Medical Association does, will not lead to a ban on capital punishment or lethal injection."
The vocal and visible support for ending capital punishment by respected groups like the AMA helps to shift the social view on capital punishment. By refusing to participate they do indeed move us closer to a ban.
This is one of the weakest and saddest rationalizations I've ever seen.
Dr. Jauhar has taken the Hippocratic oath. He is opposed to the death penalty on principle. He acknowledges that the presence of a physician is no guarantee that the condemned prisoner will not suffer.
And yet he shrugs all this off on the grounds that, gosh, if doctors don't participate in capital punishment, states will find more cruel and brutal ways to carry it out.
It seems to me that a doctor (or any person) of principle would refuse to collude in state-sanctioned killing and force states to confront the essential barbarism of the death penalty -- instead of helping to prolong the practice by superficially "sanitizing" it.
Dr. Jauhar has taken the Hippocratic oath. He is opposed to the death penalty on principle. He acknowledges that the presence of a physician is no guarantee that the condemned prisoner will not suffer.
And yet he shrugs all this off on the grounds that, gosh, if doctors don't participate in capital punishment, states will find more cruel and brutal ways to carry it out.
It seems to me that a doctor (or any person) of principle would refuse to collude in state-sanctioned killing and force states to confront the essential barbarism of the death penalty -- instead of helping to prolong the practice by superficially "sanitizing" it.
With all respect to Dr Jauhar, it's quite the contrary: Rather than alleviating the suffering of the condemned, physicians' participation in executions mainly relieves our discomfort about killing. If we really wanted to minimize pain and suffering during executions, we would use firing squads or the guillotine, means that generally cause instant death, but these are thought to be too barbaric. So instead we've chosen a complicated procedure that achieves the same result but is subject to painful untoward events unless supervised by medical professionals.
1
"Participating in executions does not make the doctor the executioner"
Yes, yes it does. And not just for the death the participating doctor hastens, but in all executions. For the participating doctor is not so much alleviating the suffering of the condemned as allowing the rest of us to not consider how barbarous the act is.
The doctor's moral compass is completely broken.
Yes, yes it does. And not just for the death the participating doctor hastens, but in all executions. For the participating doctor is not so much alleviating the suffering of the condemned as allowing the rest of us to not consider how barbarous the act is.
The doctor's moral compass is completely broken.
It is a stretch to believe that death row inmates have terminal illness because they exhausted their legal appeals.Physician who is providing comfort care is familiar with patients and their families.These physicians who are injecting lethal drugs are paid employees.
They are not doing out of compassion.
They are not doing out of compassion.
Why it is not O.K. for doctors to participate in executions
My colleague essentially makes the case that a doctor’s presence at an execution makes the killing more humane. He ignores the problem though that there is nothing humane about this archaic punishment, and contrary to his opinion, it does make the physician a mere executioner (he creates the path for the poison, he makes sure that a killing dose is calculated, much as the medieval executioner calculated the angle and force needed for a clean beheading). His presence allows the state to lend an illusion of medical normality and humanity to this act. The death penalty degrades those who participate and it degrades the physician’s profession.
For me there is no doubt that a colleague who partakes is violating the spirit of all major ethical codes of conduct relevant to our profession, and should be sanctioned by our profession’s governance bodies. The state boards fail here if they do not enforce the AMA’s guideline, and other health care professional bodies should align with the AMA where they have not.
So categorically NO, dear colleague, it is not okay for doctors to participate in executions, because our presence makes us enablers and prolongs the practice. In the worst cases it makes us complicit in state-sponsored homicide, given the estimated error rate of 4.1% in convictions leading to death sentences (Gross, SR et al. 2014).
My colleague essentially makes the case that a doctor’s presence at an execution makes the killing more humane. He ignores the problem though that there is nothing humane about this archaic punishment, and contrary to his opinion, it does make the physician a mere executioner (he creates the path for the poison, he makes sure that a killing dose is calculated, much as the medieval executioner calculated the angle and force needed for a clean beheading). His presence allows the state to lend an illusion of medical normality and humanity to this act. The death penalty degrades those who participate and it degrades the physician’s profession.
For me there is no doubt that a colleague who partakes is violating the spirit of all major ethical codes of conduct relevant to our profession, and should be sanctioned by our profession’s governance bodies. The state boards fail here if they do not enforce the AMA’s guideline, and other health care professional bodies should align with the AMA where they have not.
So categorically NO, dear colleague, it is not okay for doctors to participate in executions, because our presence makes us enablers and prolongs the practice. In the worst cases it makes us complicit in state-sponsored homicide, given the estimated error rate of 4.1% in convictions leading to death sentences (Gross, SR et al. 2014).
1
I disagree. A priest, for example, attends an execution for the condemned persons benefit and only their benefit, while the doctor -if supporting the administration of drugs, is actually facilitating. It would be different if they attended as an advocate and critic, but rather they are executioners. It strikes me that the lethal injection route allows states and justice systems which carry out capital punishment to do so in a way that assuages their own doubts and or squeamishness about their unforgivable actions. If the drugs were no longer available and doctors did not facilitate them very quickly other more brutal and even more violent me this would have to be restored to. This might force some blowhards reading their Old Testament to face up to the violence and nonsensical nature of this punishment and the extent to which it is out step with much of the U.S. and the entirety of the developed democratic world.
If their are those in Arkansas and elsewhere who truly believe in the validity of this act then let them use one of the many millions of guns in private and public ownership to do so with their own hand. Otherwise , if unwilling to do so, they should stop asking their wider community and polity to carry out these acts on their behalf.
If their are those in Arkansas and elsewhere who truly believe in the validity of this act then let them use one of the many millions of guns in private and public ownership to do so with their own hand. Otherwise , if unwilling to do so, they should stop asking their wider community and polity to carry out these acts on their behalf.
Death penalty proponents always start with the assumption they have the guy and he’s guilty as sin. And if he looks like a scary person of color or has a history of criminality, then no punishment is too severe. Capital punishment also happens to serve the political ambitions of wanna-be tough guy prosecutors and politicians. You can’t be more authoritarian than when you wield the power of life and death.
I don’t doubt there are people who deserve to die for their crimes. I just don’t trust our criminal justice system to be uniformly fair and efficient in finding the guilty and only the guilty in the appropriate measure. Nor do I think we should piously subject any of our fellow citizens, least of all doctors, to being executioners.
In many parts of the country racial bias seems to be present at all stages from questioning and charging to verdict and sentence. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable, police and prosecutorial misconduct are not rare, and ineffective and incompetent counsel are often baked into the system. The Innocence Project has repeatedly exonerated people where DNA evidence was pertinent.
We have a justice system that’s very far from perfect, and virtual perfection should be required before state sponsored homicide is condoned and carried out. Even then, It’s hard to argue it’s morally acceptable beyond some pre-christen sense of retribution.
I don’t doubt there are people who deserve to die for their crimes. I just don’t trust our criminal justice system to be uniformly fair and efficient in finding the guilty and only the guilty in the appropriate measure. Nor do I think we should piously subject any of our fellow citizens, least of all doctors, to being executioners.
In many parts of the country racial bias seems to be present at all stages from questioning and charging to verdict and sentence. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable, police and prosecutorial misconduct are not rare, and ineffective and incompetent counsel are often baked into the system. The Innocence Project has repeatedly exonerated people where DNA evidence was pertinent.
We have a justice system that’s very far from perfect, and virtual perfection should be required before state sponsored homicide is condoned and carried out. Even then, It’s hard to argue it’s morally acceptable beyond some pre-christen sense of retribution.
Violence begets violence. The use of execution is so spotty and so inconsistent and the legal system so arbitrary that, as a practical matter, it has become meaningless as a deterrent.
Medicalizing executions only leads more people to think of it as somehow humane when it is anything but.
By supporting physician assisted executions there is a significant risk that the objection to execution will go down. This may be a risk you're willing to take given that to do otherwise effectively argues for painful sacrifice of a death row inmate for the greater purpose of finally making enough people see it for the barbaric act it is. I'm just not sure the slight improvement to the last moments of life of a condemned person justify the risk that more will be executed.
I'd like to believe that if I were on death row I could at least go the the gallows with the hope my death might not be in vain, that I might lead to the end of capital punishment.
By supporting physician assisted executions there is a significant risk that the objection to execution will go down. This may be a risk you're willing to take given that to do otherwise effectively argues for painful sacrifice of a death row inmate for the greater purpose of finally making enough people see it for the barbaric act it is. I'm just not sure the slight improvement to the last moments of life of a condemned person justify the risk that more will be executed.
I'd like to believe that if I were on death row I could at least go the the gallows with the hope my death might not be in vain, that I might lead to the end of capital punishment.
No. I could barely read this opinion piece as I struggled to justify any reason a physician should be at an execution. I understand the author's argument, but I simply don't see how any doctor could compromise or twist her or his values in order to assist in the state-sanctioned murder of a human being. I'm ashamed to live in a country where murder by the state is allowed.
Participating in executions ABSOLUTELY makes the doctor the executioner. Rationalize it all you'd like, but ultimately someone has to put the lethal drugs in the victim. If a doctor does it, he is violating his oath. If a state finds no doctors willing to administer the drugs, and it decides to revert to firing squad or electrocution, then the officials--and citizens--of that state will have to reckon with that. To the extent doctors facilitate an easy and guilt-minimizing method of murder, they are complicit in that murder and violate their oaths, and are not fit to practice medicine, or even hold their heads high in a civilized society. This is not harm reduction; it is harm infliction.
Why would a doctor who chooses to administer drugs for execution be ashamed? Why should there be a stigma? If capital punishment is just and good, these doctors should be proud.
Of course it's just fine for a physician to participate in an execution, or in torture, etc.
As long as he gets signed consent from the victim in advance.
As long as he gets signed consent from the victim in advance.
Your argument that refusal of physicians to participate in executions will not stop the use of the death penalty might have made sense 100 years ago when death sentences were far more common. It is not convincing in a world where many countries have already gotten rid of executions and most civilized people oppose it on principle. Doctors should be upholders of human rights, not facilitators of government killing. The USA should join the civilized world; doctors should help.
There aren't words for me to disagree with this opinion more vociferously. What is appalling is that physicians have been present—and, often, more than simply present, but actively participant—in all the major atrocities of the modern era. In this way, doctors lend their credibility to the systematic destruction of human bodies on behalf of whichever regime is footing their bill. Which part of the spirit of the Hippocratic oath don't we get?
1
By what measure are these other methods "more brutal"? I daresay that a firing squad or beheading is vastly quicker and could be said to be less dreadful for the condemned than the current injection processes, which are long and involve a creepy amount of physical contact through IV placement that medicalizes the execution. However, they involve visible blood and may be more upsetting to witnesses, who might like to pretend something neat and tidy is going on, denying the essence of what is transpiring. If the notion of actually spilling blood during an execution seems too brutal, I suggest that it is the execution itself that deserves rethinking. Otherwise, medical professionals should not participate in facilitating the death of their patients.
10
The author has an opinion, but no real argument for its ethical basis. Telling us that it is less likely that an execution will be botched if a physician is present seems to be the only argument he can find, and that is no argument at all. In fact, I would call that an argument against participation. Physicians have a moral obligation to refuse to participate in such uncivilized and immoral behavior. When we participate in these activities, it appears that we are giving the death penalty laws our stamp of approval. Helping executions run smoothly only makes them more palatable to the public.
As a doctor, I don't agree.
We (this opinion column) are speaking about the personal beliefs of Dr. Jauhar. He is entitled to them. There are thousands of us physicians who disagree, and are on the other side of the fence regarding participating in executions.
We (this opinion column) are speaking about the personal beliefs of Dr. Jauhar. He is entitled to them. There are thousands of us physicians who disagree, and are on the other side of the fence regarding participating in executions.
Doctors can't find a vein. Nurses can. The arrogance of thinking a doctor can do it better is misplaced. Think fact rather than theory.
Physicians should never aid in killing a person.
Physicians should never aid in killing a person.
No. Doctors may not participate in harm. Period.
4
I've sadly had to have a number of terminally ill pets euthanized, as has my wife, and it's a sad and terrible thing. I once asked our vet and he said "unlike human doctors, I can give my patients final relief, with no suffering." And, no, our beloved pets didn't suffer, only their owners did.
Yet as monstrous as the process of executing our fellow human beings is, the blatant violation of the 8th Amendment's prohibition of "Cruel and Unusual punishment" has been frequently breached since execution returned 41 years ago. A vet can painlessly, easily kill a suffering creature, from a pet mouse to an elephant, but the several states that execute can't figure out how to do the same thing! They cannot get the proper drugs that every hospital has like Thiopental because drug companies aren't in the business of killing people. Why? Because they think it's bad for business!
So why are Free-Market driven business-oriented Republicans SO eager to execute people when the Free Market is saying IT IS BAD FOR BUSINESS!?
Yet as monstrous as the process of executing our fellow human beings is, the blatant violation of the 8th Amendment's prohibition of "Cruel and Unusual punishment" has been frequently breached since execution returned 41 years ago. A vet can painlessly, easily kill a suffering creature, from a pet mouse to an elephant, but the several states that execute can't figure out how to do the same thing! They cannot get the proper drugs that every hospital has like Thiopental because drug companies aren't in the business of killing people. Why? Because they think it's bad for business!
So why are Free-Market driven business-oriented Republicans SO eager to execute people when the Free Market is saying IT IS BAD FOR BUSINESS!?
Many states require physician participation at executions? There's your problem right there. They should require nurse practitioners. Why should the condemned get better health care than the rest of us? Seriously, it will be progress when natural death can be as humanely assisted by physicians as are executions.
Physicians are called upon to do no harm. They are not called upon to prevent harm done by others. That is the state's jobs. No physician should participate in killing someone just because someone else might botch the job. And to suggest that a death sentence is a disease is more than a stretch, it is completely ludicrous.
We all have a terminal disease with 100 percent mortality -- it's called "time." By Dr. Jauhar's logic, it would be perfectly ethical, or perhaps even ethically compelled, for physicians to euthanize us all to protect us against the often painful vicissitudes of life and the possibility of an uncomfortable death. Some principles are so sacred they must never yield to pragmatism. That a physician ought never participate in the affirmative commission of non-consensual homicide is one such principle.
Not with you there. No way.
Enabling cruel and barbaric behavior by physicians who take a sacred oath will exponentially INCREASE the rate of executions.
That's not humane. That's just wrong.
Enabling cruel and barbaric behavior by physicians who take a sacred oath will exponentially INCREASE the rate of executions.
That's not humane. That's just wrong.
No you are wrong.
And even if, as you surmise, a doctor should be present
In my experience it would be the exceptional clinician who could actually palliate a dying patient appropriately, if at all.
And another thing....in Auschwitz, as one inmate succinctly put it,
"They were all doctors" ...and many of them too believed they were alleviating suffering.
And even if, as you surmise, a doctor should be present
In my experience it would be the exceptional clinician who could actually palliate a dying patient appropriately, if at all.
And another thing....in Auschwitz, as one inmate succinctly put it,
"They were all doctors" ...and many of them too believed they were alleviating suffering.
This is a nonsense rationalization. In what way does this doctor think that a doctor being present might alleviate suffering? Other than possibly being more adept at inserting an IV line, he gives no indication, zero, how a doctor might alleviate suffering.
In fact, the doctor's failure to note the questionability of the entire protocol is an egregios omission. Here is what he wrote: "A standard three-drug protocol for executions — sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride — was developed in Oklahoma in 1977..."
So, doctor, HOW was that protocol developed? It was all nothing but medical speculation that the sedative administered first would alleviate the pain of potassium chloride. In fact, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that this is not the case at all. The credulous adoption of what is essentially an unregulated medical experiment adopted forty years ago calls this doctor's scientific curiosity, skepticism and rigor all into legitimate question.
After several botched lethal injections, some lasting over an hour, how can he call a firing squad more "brutal?"
Finally, contrary to the doctor's assertion, capital punishment is markedly rarer, and support for it is on the wane, and there is real hope that America might join the rest of the civilized world in eliminating capital punishment.
In fact, the doctor's failure to note the questionability of the entire protocol is an egregios omission. Here is what he wrote: "A standard three-drug protocol for executions — sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride — was developed in Oklahoma in 1977..."
So, doctor, HOW was that protocol developed? It was all nothing but medical speculation that the sedative administered first would alleviate the pain of potassium chloride. In fact, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that this is not the case at all. The credulous adoption of what is essentially an unregulated medical experiment adopted forty years ago calls this doctor's scientific curiosity, skepticism and rigor all into legitimate question.
After several botched lethal injections, some lasting over an hour, how can he call a firing squad more "brutal?"
Finally, contrary to the doctor's assertion, capital punishment is markedly rarer, and support for it is on the wane, and there is real hope that America might join the rest of the civilized world in eliminating capital punishment.
4
the AMA is absolutely correct.
the state does not have the moral "right"
to deliberately execute anyone.
those states that still chose to do so,
should consider returning to the 'firing squad'
as their method of choice.
licensed physicians should not actively participate in
the application of a deliberate death.
'tis past-due-time to attempt a better effort at civilization.
1
Doctors, take your oath seriously: Do no harm. Do not inflict death. There are about 750 people on Death Row in the state of California, but none have been executed in the last ten years. In great part, this is because the last time the state needed a medical professional to hook up and administer an IV injection, no one stepped forward.
So many nauseating things in this "OpED"! The level of pretension quite staggering. "Participating in executions does not make the doctor the executioner, just as providing comfort care to a terminally ill patient does not make the doctor the bearer of the disease." Equating the circumstance of a patient terminally ill with a person subjected to State sanctioned death sentence is morally derelict and profoundly disturbing. Does Dr. Juahar draw no lines in the sand in complicity with State regimes: would it be ethical for physicians to administer sedatives to people before being dispatched to gas chambers to ease "apprehension"? His inordinate confidence in physicians performing the execution of the death penalty is also misplaced. He admits a physician was involved in one major instance but in fact physicians are involved in most of the seriously botched executions. Dr. Jauhar doesn't bother to cite circumstances where death sentences are overturned or innocent people executed. Nor does he bother to cite the near universal opinion of legal scholars that the application of the death penalty in the USA is unequivocally racist. Not only physicians, all the professional organizations representing EMTs, paramedics should bar the participation of their members in executions which in the USA are now confined chiefly to the states of the Old Confederacy. Gorsuch's vote today is a renewed warning if ever needed that elections matter-so much for his regard for "all human life".
4
Any assistance of a physician at an execution is clearly a breach of the medical oath and should lead to instant serious sanctions. You would be acting against a patients will and against his best interest. Suggesting that you only alliviate suffering is not a solid moral view, as you also make the suffering possible. Death penalty in the USA has a serious racial bias. By assisting you would be enforcing that. Revoking the licence would be the correct sanction for an ethical breach of this magnitude.
1
And doctors should assist in torture to make sure that the pain is inflicted as effectively as possible to induced only the needed suffering, but not more. . . And doctors should assist in gas chambers to make such that the gas works as quickly as possible. . . And doctors should assist in chemical attacks to ensure that the attack harms as few people as possible outside the targeted area. . . And doctors should remove organs to be sold to do everything possible to prolong the lives of the criminals. ...
1
thou shall not kill....if we scrap that we should all line up and kill each other until the las tone is left to committ suicide.
which of the precepts of common decency are we sacrificing next?
doctors are not allowed to kill people. Judge not saith the creator of nature...
It will be dicided in a larger court than we can concieve of as mere humans...
if we simply accept not doing to others that which we do not want done to us, we will, once again, ban capital punishment-and all cruel and unusual punishment.
which of the precepts of common decency are we sacrificing next?
doctors are not allowed to kill people. Judge not saith the creator of nature...
It will be dicided in a larger court than we can concieve of as mere humans...
if we simply accept not doing to others that which we do not want done to us, we will, once again, ban capital punishment-and all cruel and unusual punishment.
1
If states want to kill people, it should be done publicly and it should be done horribly. Sanitizing state-sanctioned murder will only prolong what is a major moral shortcoming in our country. States that desire to kill people are usually states that declare themselves to be pro life. These are also state that tend to reject Medicaid expansion so that poor people in their state don't die. They should be at least upfront, frank and brutal about their barbarity and put it on display for everyone to see. Executions are about revenge, not about justice. Then again, we don't have a corrections system in this country. We have a revenge system where it doesn't matter who pays for the crime as long as someone does. Firing squads, hangings and drawing and quartering, all on the 6 o'clock news. Maybe then people will not be as gung ho to support state sanctioned murder.
1
" If anything, it will lead only to the reinstatement of more brutal forms of execution that do not require medical expertise, such as electrocution or death by firing squad."
And then, perhaps, the inhumanity and horror of executon will be explicit and obvious, rather than having it be obsucred by the complicity of physicians who, under the guise of humane action to reduce the suffering of the victim, in fact are partners in what is indeed a vengeful and cruel, if not unusal, punishment.
And then, perhaps, the inhumanity and horror of executon will be explicit and obvious, rather than having it be obsucred by the complicity of physicians who, under the guise of humane action to reduce the suffering of the victim, in fact are partners in what is indeed a vengeful and cruel, if not unusal, punishment.
It's not OK for anyone to participate in executions by the state or anyone else. This practice is ridiculous and crosses a line. There are morals and ethics that go beyond laws. This essay is ABSURD and UNFIT to discuss to print,
Unbelievable and brought to you by the paper that predicted a 90% win for HRC. Having an MD present does not make public execution OK. it's barbaric behaviour.
Unbelievable and brought to you by the paper that predicted a 90% win for HRC. Having an MD present does not make public execution OK. it's barbaric behaviour.
Lethal injection has never been nor will it ever be about merciful killing of the executed. Instead it is about assuaging the guilt of those who support the death penalty and doctors should never agree to be involved. Killing a person who would otherwise spend the rest of their life in a cage is not a medical procedure - it is just killing. If we as a society decide to kill someone, then let it appear as brutal as it is, not as some faux medical procedure. Just like jury duty, in states with the death penalty, everyone should be put into the lottery and assigned to execution duty. You alone fire the bullet, flip the switch on the electric chair or swing the axe and then you get to dispose of the corpse you just created. You. Not some doctor, coroner, sheriff's deputy or comfortably diffuse "We the People." You have to kill them and then drag them into a grave. If you are willing to dispense death, take full responsibility for the deed.
Interesting... and some people would take on the job if it paid right.. and also because some people want to have the experience of killing. Are you implying that these people are now murders?? So it seems. Interesting argument.
Whatever happened to "Do no harm"?
It is not reasonable to argue that it is okay for a physician to help carry out an execution because if he doesn't help, it could be worse. That sort of tortured logic could allow for a justification for almost anything -- the Nazi's were very good at that type of thinking.
A career dedicated to healing and preservation of human life requires support for the essential tenets that the AMA upholds -- I am pleased to know that the humanity of both doctor and patient are their highest priority.
A career dedicated to healing and preservation of human life requires support for the essential tenets that the AMA upholds -- I am pleased to know that the humanity of both doctor and patient are their highest priority.
No excuse for physicians participating in executions in any manner. Period.
1
By the same logic, why is it not legal and OK for doctors to assist a patient who wands to end his/her life to relieve pain? It seems like it is OK for a doctor to help relieve pain of a person the society wnats to kill against the wish of the accused but not when the person wishes to die! It is the hypocracy loaded with vengeance. Do two wrongs make it right? Since some pharmaceutical companies have put their morals ahead of profits by refusing to sell chemicals for "social" killing? all doctors should discard this cloak of humanity and refuse to help society kill a person. If there is no execution, there is no pain and no doctor needs to be present.
1
The question about assisted suicide ... I don't know the exact role of the MD. If a person can administer his own meds to result in death that's one case. If the MD is being asked to deliver the meds that's another. If the death wish results from chronic depression which it often does... one needs to wait; more than one has changed his mind. BTW I believe Gorsuch will vote against MD assisted suicide.
Remember that C can equal MD and that passing board and sub speciality exams and obtaining licensure doesn't include passing basic courses in logic and philosophy.
1
Dr. Jauhar,
I am a Registered Nurse and I must, respectfully, disagree with you. I see you wish to relieve suffering to these unfortunate souls who will be executed. As professionals, we must unflinchingly and untiringly maintain the line that our professions have drawn. You suggest situations such as these are comprised of ethical principles in tension. You focus on the duty to alleviate suffering. You state an equivalence of this situation with that of a person suffering from a disease with "100 percent mortality." But, there is a difference. This disease is man-made. A comparison can be made with the killing that occurred at Auschwitz and that of the Euthanasia programs (Aktion T4) of Nazi Germany, both of which were enacted by Medical and Nursing professionals who cited, among many other reasons for their participation, compassion.
However, we Medical and Nursing professionals must lead. We must use every ounce of power we can muster to maintain the never compromising statement that we will do no harm, not today, not ever. Our professions must never assist in murder, for that is what this is--murder. It is through our professional expertise and the trust the public places in our experienced opinions that we may lead and educate the public in order to enact this necessary and fundamentally compassionate change in our society.
I am a Registered Nurse and I must, respectfully, disagree with you. I see you wish to relieve suffering to these unfortunate souls who will be executed. As professionals, we must unflinchingly and untiringly maintain the line that our professions have drawn. You suggest situations such as these are comprised of ethical principles in tension. You focus on the duty to alleviate suffering. You state an equivalence of this situation with that of a person suffering from a disease with "100 percent mortality." But, there is a difference. This disease is man-made. A comparison can be made with the killing that occurred at Auschwitz and that of the Euthanasia programs (Aktion T4) of Nazi Germany, both of which were enacted by Medical and Nursing professionals who cited, among many other reasons for their participation, compassion.
However, we Medical and Nursing professionals must lead. We must use every ounce of power we can muster to maintain the never compromising statement that we will do no harm, not today, not ever. Our professions must never assist in murder, for that is what this is--murder. It is through our professional expertise and the trust the public places in our experienced opinions that we may lead and educate the public in order to enact this necessary and fundamentally compassionate change in our society.
To participate in any way with a murder is still murder. To participate in any way with a state sanctioned killing is still being a killer. With innocent but convicted rates of 10 to 20%...
just how much is the pay per state murder i meant state sanctioned killing?
just how much is the pay per state murder i meant state sanctioned killing?
I suppose anyone capable of rationalizing executions as something other than state sanctioned murder can swallow your premise. Personally, I see it as an ethical cop out.
What a strange and bizarre line of thinking. At least Dr.Sandeep Jauhar admits that "Physician participation does not guarantee an execution won’t be bungled." But Dr. Jauhar offers no medical reason for an MD to be present except to be present "when things go awry."
What the public sees is that a set of drugs is administered intravenously. Any competent medical technician or nurse can do that work. But who does the preparation of the drugs behind the scenes (not in the execution room)? Dr. Jauhar only makes the case that a physician can somehow stop suffering after the suffering starts, but he does't tell us how except to provide, in his words, "spiritual and narcotic" comfort.
Well, the spiritual part belongs to the representatives of the Divinity, not the medical profession.
It seems the good Doctor is then trying to say that an additional drug will alleviate suffering. If the first drugs were injected properly, then what makes Dr. Jauhar think the narcotics would be injected properly.
Dr. Jauhar seems quite confused on the issues, and maybe he should step out of the arena and let bio-ethicists express their ideas.In fact, the most potent forces that are in motion to stop the barbaric but legal (in some places) norms of execution are the medical profession and drug manufacturers
What the public sees is that a set of drugs is administered intravenously. Any competent medical technician or nurse can do that work. But who does the preparation of the drugs behind the scenes (not in the execution room)? Dr. Jauhar only makes the case that a physician can somehow stop suffering after the suffering starts, but he does't tell us how except to provide, in his words, "spiritual and narcotic" comfort.
Well, the spiritual part belongs to the representatives of the Divinity, not the medical profession.
It seems the good Doctor is then trying to say that an additional drug will alleviate suffering. If the first drugs were injected properly, then what makes Dr. Jauhar think the narcotics would be injected properly.
Dr. Jauhar seems quite confused on the issues, and maybe he should step out of the arena and let bio-ethicists express their ideas.In fact, the most potent forces that are in motion to stop the barbaric but legal (in some places) norms of execution are the medical profession and drug manufacturers
Comparing a person being unwillingly executed to someone choosing assisted, voluntary euthanasia reflects the deeply flawed logic that you use throughout this essay. The medical societies have it right and you are attempting to defend an indefensible position. There is no way to morally justify the active participation of a physician in the forcible taking of someone else's life.
1
There is no such thing as a humane execution. No society that executes people is truly civilised.
The death penalty is always ultimately based on revenge. Revenge and justice are contrary ideas; the one negates the other.
In the United States, the death penalty has been disproportionately used against the poor, the marginalised, the non-white, the mentally ill, the developmentally disabled, and, as has been repeatedly proved, all too often the innocent. Although executing the mentally ill and the developmentally disabled is now constitutionally prohibited, death penalty states often fight to execute those convicted whose mental health and developmental level are questionable.
With the current White House occupant and the federal judges he seems intent on appointing we can no longer assume the judicial branch will prove any brake to this barbarity.
America's lust for blood revenge puts us in the company of countries like Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, etc.
It is long past time to stop it.
The death penalty is always ultimately based on revenge. Revenge and justice are contrary ideas; the one negates the other.
In the United States, the death penalty has been disproportionately used against the poor, the marginalised, the non-white, the mentally ill, the developmentally disabled, and, as has been repeatedly proved, all too often the innocent. Although executing the mentally ill and the developmentally disabled is now constitutionally prohibited, death penalty states often fight to execute those convicted whose mental health and developmental level are questionable.
With the current White House occupant and the federal judges he seems intent on appointing we can no longer assume the judicial branch will prove any brake to this barbarity.
America's lust for blood revenge puts us in the company of countries like Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, etc.
It is long past time to stop it.
4
I oppose the death penalty. But still, I have wondered why in the world dont they just inject a massively lethal dose of a sedative? Surely there is a lethal dose of something that puts the victim out of consciousness, rather than try to get them unconscious and then kill them with paralyzers and heart stoppers. Or a massive dose of heroin, which surely the state can get its hands on.
If you're not going to eliminate capital punishment, at least make it truly painless.
If you're not going to eliminate capital punishment, at least make it truly painless.
Here's an idea, instead of physicians let's us veterinarians after all they have more experience and are more adept at "putting down" living creatures who are deemed not worthy of life.
Dr. Jauhar,
No, it's not OK for doctors to help the state in its premeditated killing of its citizens. The medicalization of capital punishment is one of the strangest and least justifiable recent trends in criminal justice. Killing is killing.
If the state wants to kill someone it should embrace the act in all its inherent brutality.
If you want to help the state kill people I suggest that you volunteer to shoot condemned prisoners in the head with a large caliber pistol, the way they execute people in China. That's as least as humane as lethal injection. With a bullet to the head you don't even need to worry about starting an IV.
No, it's not OK for doctors to help the state in its premeditated killing of its citizens. The medicalization of capital punishment is one of the strangest and least justifiable recent trends in criminal justice. Killing is killing.
If the state wants to kill someone it should embrace the act in all its inherent brutality.
If you want to help the state kill people I suggest that you volunteer to shoot condemned prisoners in the head with a large caliber pistol, the way they execute people in China. That's as least as humane as lethal injection. With a bullet to the head you don't even need to worry about starting an IV.
Hogwash. Execution is not covered by the Hippocratic oath. We take a vow to do no harm.
3
If you oppose capital punishment, then it is hypocritical to find reasons to participate in any capacity. If all people of good will boycotted this anachronistic, cruel, unevenly enforced barbaity, then it would stop. Let state-sanctioned murder find its own murderers.
This is the craziest thing I have read ever. Helping kill someone against their will DOES NOT alleviate suffering. Capital punishment is the height of inhumanity. You do not make it more humane by "alleviating suffering" at an execution. We have long been blotted as a country by its barbaric use. And applied mainly to African Americans and other minorities. The fact that the trump voting populace screams for retribution and killing does not make it justifiable in any sense nor that we should make it more "palatable," as you seemingly imply.
You need consider very deeply what you are advocating. You say you are opposed to capital punishment -- pretending that doctors are a safeguard against "brutality". That is a delusion and a sickness. Dr. -- My prescription is to heal yourself and if you're really opposed to capital punishment, get out there and fight the fight against it, not contribute to its ongoing rampage against civilization.
You need consider very deeply what you are advocating. You say you are opposed to capital punishment -- pretending that doctors are a safeguard against "brutality". That is a delusion and a sickness. Dr. -- My prescription is to heal yourself and if you're really opposed to capital punishment, get out there and fight the fight against it, not contribute to its ongoing rampage against civilization.
9
"Participating in executions does not make the doctor the executioner...."
Then who is the executioner? An invisible entity? Someone or something called God? Who reportedly gave to Moses among other "commandments" the command "do not kill" Someone named Neil Gorsuch who " along with the four other conservative justices, denied his (Leddel Leigh) final appeal without explanation"? "Do not kill. In the name of...........
Then who is the executioner? An invisible entity? Someone or something called God? Who reportedly gave to Moses among other "commandments" the command "do not kill" Someone named Neil Gorsuch who " along with the four other conservative justices, denied his (Leddel Leigh) final appeal without explanation"? "Do not kill. In the name of...........
The question the doctor should ask is if he would have helped regimes who have committed genocides by offering to "alleviate suffering of the victims." Th good doctor's moral compass needs major repairs.
No one needs to have a licensed physician present. A registered nurse, or, certainly, a PA (physician's assistant) can perform all the necessary tasks of a mistake-free execution in a strictly professional manner.
The PA goes thru three years of college training to become a PA. They are allowed in all states to prescribe medicine for patients just as the doctor does.
So let the A.M.A. butt out if they feel skittish and let's get on with the next execution, with fully competent medics handling things..
P.S. I personally prefer the firing squad as most humane and quickest form of execution. And it's silent - no quacking and wailing of the do-gooders.
The PA goes thru three years of college training to become a PA. They are allowed in all states to prescribe medicine for patients just as the doctor does.
So let the A.M.A. butt out if they feel skittish and let's get on with the next execution, with fully competent medics handling things..
P.S. I personally prefer the firing squad as most humane and quickest form of execution. And it's silent - no quacking and wailing of the do-gooders.
"Why It’s O.K. for Doctors to Participate in Executions."
It's not.
It's not.
"It is not a stretch to think of death-row inmates who have exhausted their appeals as having a terminal disease with 100 percent mortality."
They only have a "terminal disease" if you kill them. I am a cardiologist too, but sorry, this is wrong.
They only have a "terminal disease" if you kill them. I am a cardiologist too, but sorry, this is wrong.
10
OK for doctors to assist executions sort of ignores, "do no harm", does it not? Oh, that only applies to patients. Wait...
Whatever happened to the Hippocratic Oath?
Primum non nocere (first, do no harm.)
Primum non nocere (first, do no harm.)
1
Truly, the capacity for self-delusion is without limit.
8
Come back and report to us once you've pushed the drugs to end someones life.
This is not timely. It approaches a brief for "Holocaust Centers": zyklon B instead of carbon monoxide gas vans or mass shootings.
(The author writes: "Though I oppose capital punishment as a matter of principle, as a doctor I believe physician presence at executions is consistent with our mandate to alleviate suffering. ... Discouraging physician participation, as the American Medical Association does, will not lead to a ban on capital punishment or lethal injection. If anything, it will lead only to the reinstatement of more brutal forms of execution that do not require medical expertise, such as electrocution or death by firing squad." )
(The author writes: "Though I oppose capital punishment as a matter of principle, as a doctor I believe physician presence at executions is consistent with our mandate to alleviate suffering. ... Discouraging physician participation, as the American Medical Association does, will not lead to a ban on capital punishment or lethal injection. If anything, it will lead only to the reinstatement of more brutal forms of execution that do not require medical expertise, such as electrocution or death by firing squad." )
"...will not lead to a ban on capital punishment or lethal injection. If anything, it will lead only to the reinstatement of more brutal forms of execution that do not require medical expertise, such as electrocution or death by firing squad."
I thought the 8th Amendment in the American Constitution protected people from the use of cruel and unusual methods of punishment?
Or do more " brutal forms of execution..." not fall under the meaning, intent and objective of the 8th Amerndant
I thought the 8th Amendment in the American Constitution protected people from the use of cruel and unusual methods of punishment?
Or do more " brutal forms of execution..." not fall under the meaning, intent and objective of the 8th Amerndant
So far from the truth. Killing people is not alleviating suffering. But whatever gets you through those long nights, right?
1
This is a bad argument for the wrong use of a physician.
1
Moral outrage is self serving.
Knock it off and get over it. I don't care.
Knock it off and get over it. I don't care.
this is some serious post hoc rationalization. at least I know who to call when I need an end run around professional ethics.
1
While I agree having doctors participate in an execution may make it less painful for the inmate, I also think it adds an air of legitimacy to the procedure.
The fact that we've chosen to adopt a method of execution that appears painless and clinical rather than one that ensures a nearly instant or painless death (such as beheading or nitrogen asphyxiation) is telling. Perhaps death penalty proponents are less comfortable with the act of murder than they let on.
We have euphemisms for when we euthanize animals. They aren't being killed, they're being "put to sleep" or "put down". It's little lie we can tell ourselves to distance us from the reality that we're killing a living thing.
Lethal injections should not operate under the shroud of medical legitimacy. It's not a medical procedure. It's a "clean" looking murder.
The fact that we've chosen to adopt a method of execution that appears painless and clinical rather than one that ensures a nearly instant or painless death (such as beheading or nitrogen asphyxiation) is telling. Perhaps death penalty proponents are less comfortable with the act of murder than they let on.
We have euphemisms for when we euthanize animals. They aren't being killed, they're being "put to sleep" or "put down". It's little lie we can tell ourselves to distance us from the reality that we're killing a living thing.
Lethal injections should not operate under the shroud of medical legitimacy. It's not a medical procedure. It's a "clean" looking murder.
172
I believe in the death penalty. Some criminal acts are so heinous that they merit execution. I wish our criminal justice system were speedier, with fewer opportunities for endless appeals, and that execution shortly followed upon conviction. And yet... the oath I took was, "First, do no harm." I just can't do it, and I don't see how any physician can justify it to himself.
63
Nothing like a person who needs someone else to do his dirty work for him! The man executed in Arkansas a few days ago had so many problems attached to his conviction that only an elitist, like Gorsuch, who also never had to do his own dirty work, could agree to it.
The death penalty doesn't deter other criminals from murdering. And murder rates in states with and without execution have ZERO correlation. That's a statistical fact.
American law differs diametrically from the priest who wrote "kill them all. God will know his own." to it is better to let a hundred guilty live than risk killing one innocent person. And far more than one have bedn documented to have been murdered by the states since Gary Gilmore.
Finally, execution costs far more than decades of incarceration.
Failure of deterrence, failure of certainty of guilt, and failure of cost control.
This is why execution has no place in America.
The death penalty doesn't deter other criminals from murdering. And murder rates in states with and without execution have ZERO correlation. That's a statistical fact.
American law differs diametrically from the priest who wrote "kill them all. God will know his own." to it is better to let a hundred guilty live than risk killing one innocent person. And far more than one have bedn documented to have been murdered by the states since Gary Gilmore.
Finally, execution costs far more than decades of incarceration.
Failure of deterrence, failure of certainty of guilt, and failure of cost control.
This is why execution has no place in America.
4
Why believe in the death penalty? so indiscriminately applied. The most heinous crimes committed e.g. using gas on the state's own citizens' are never punished by death? Review the Nuremberg trials. The worst part of all of this was Gorsuch! BTW it has never been proven that the death penalty actually deters the very emotional or calculating people who commit heinous crimes.
How about a system that doesn't make the races of the victim and the criminal primary considerations in who is executed.
1
I would like to know why doctors can participate in executions and there is still controversy over whether a doctor should assist a terminally ill patient end their life, when that patient decides they have endured enough.
351
Donna:
I am guessing yours is a rhetorical question and I am not sure how much you have read about the subject of assisted suicide. Here is one of many short discussions: http://www.berkeleywellness.com/healthy-community/health-care-policy/art... . There is no simple answer and our culture will continue to deal with "value pluralism" on this subject: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-pluralism/ .
Personally, I think policies such as "death with dignity" laws (now in place in Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana, and California) should be applied nationally. This will obviously be an ongoing and heated debate. As for considerations of "legal" executions and doctor participation, I would not want to bundle so much together.
The SCOTUS will, perhaps one day in the not too distant future, hear a case or cases challenging the basic constitutionality of the death penalty. If we get rid of that process, then doctors can reduce the heat surrounding at least one social argument--there are plenty of others.
I am guessing yours is a rhetorical question and I am not sure how much you have read about the subject of assisted suicide. Here is one of many short discussions: http://www.berkeleywellness.com/healthy-community/health-care-policy/art... . There is no simple answer and our culture will continue to deal with "value pluralism" on this subject: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/value-pluralism/ .
Personally, I think policies such as "death with dignity" laws (now in place in Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Montana, and California) should be applied nationally. This will obviously be an ongoing and heated debate. As for considerations of "legal" executions and doctor participation, I would not want to bundle so much together.
The SCOTUS will, perhaps one day in the not too distant future, hear a case or cases challenging the basic constitutionality of the death penalty. If we get rid of that process, then doctors can reduce the heat surrounding at least one social argument--there are plenty of others.
Both are violations of the Hippocratic Oath.
1
Peter:
I am also a physician, but like many, never took the Hippocratic Oath, which is also problematic on many levels: http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-myth-of-the-hippocratic-oath-2015... .
I am also a physician, but like many, never took the Hippocratic Oath, which is also problematic on many levels: http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-myth-of-the-hippocratic-oath-2015... .
How does fussing around with tubes and poking around for veins not produce prolonged suffering?
Executions should be done the old-fashioned way: by firing squad, or by hanging. Both methods are expedient, tried-and-true and effective.
Lethal injections prolong suffering—there's too many time-consuming procedures that take place on the gurney, and no assurance that the drugs will work as intended. The death machinery requires operators who become complicit in state-sponsored death. People who effectively pull the poison levers are negatively affected for life by their complicity in legitimized murder.
If firing squads and the gallows sound too graphic, brutal and bloody, then consider the best alternative: banning the death penalty. Putting people to death is barbaric—it's more about revenge than justice. Under the cover of alleged humaneness, lethal injections give the death penalty undeserved legitimacy.
Executions should be done the old-fashioned way: by firing squad, or by hanging. Both methods are expedient, tried-and-true and effective.
Lethal injections prolong suffering—there's too many time-consuming procedures that take place on the gurney, and no assurance that the drugs will work as intended. The death machinery requires operators who become complicit in state-sponsored death. People who effectively pull the poison levers are negatively affected for life by their complicity in legitimized murder.
If firing squads and the gallows sound too graphic, brutal and bloody, then consider the best alternative: banning the death penalty. Putting people to death is barbaric—it's more about revenge than justice. Under the cover of alleged humaneness, lethal injections give the death penalty undeserved legitimacy.
211
And, executions, as public penalties for public crimes, with public records, with public funds, should be broadcasted and YouTubed for all to watch, especially by children for whom they should serve as deterrents.
"revenge than justice. "
revenge IS justice, it balances the scales of evil and retribution and punishment and restoration
revenge IS justice, it balances the scales of evil and retribution and punishment and restoration
to Ignacio J. Silva
"especially by children for whom they should serve as deterrents."
=
Since there are 20,000 homicides a year, I would be content with 20,000 executions per year, for say twenty years, I think that would get the message out.
YouTube is optional
After the first 10 or so it would become boring, certainly by 100, and repetitive, but as a visual archive, not a bad thing, attached say to the details of the crime, some crime pics, discussion of the impact on the survivors,
=
Although, we are told, public hangings were always a spectacle, maybe a solemn one, of communal reaffirmation
=
Worth a try though, the YouTube option, for say five years, to watch the crime rate, no mandatory viewing in public schools though....
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we've locked a lot of people up, and crime has gone down... homicide is different though than other crimes
"especially by children for whom they should serve as deterrents."
=
Since there are 20,000 homicides a year, I would be content with 20,000 executions per year, for say twenty years, I think that would get the message out.
YouTube is optional
After the first 10 or so it would become boring, certainly by 100, and repetitive, but as a visual archive, not a bad thing, attached say to the details of the crime, some crime pics, discussion of the impact on the survivors,
=
Although, we are told, public hangings were always a spectacle, maybe a solemn one, of communal reaffirmation
=
Worth a try though, the YouTube option, for say five years, to watch the crime rate, no mandatory viewing in public schools though....
=
we've locked a lot of people up, and crime has gone down... homicide is different though than other crimes
Collaborating with evil in the hopes of mitigating it is still evil.
317
Very succinctly put. The original article is nothing but an exercise in verbal excuses to do something that should not be done in the first place.
1
So, Ms. Shelley, do spiritual advisors/priests/pastors/imams attending the condemned also collaborating with evil?
Doctor, your mandate is not only to alleviate suffering - it is, as it has been for 2,400 years, above all else to "do no harm." Your obligation is to avoid impairing the health and well-being of your patient, and the sole and express purpose of an execution is to terminate the health and well-being of your patient.
Participating in an execution on the consoling pretense that you are "alleviating suffering" doesn't change the fact that you are helping to kill your patient. That is a violation of your most fundamental mandate, and no fancy words can change that barbaric fact.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
Participating in an execution on the consoling pretense that you are "alleviating suffering" doesn't change the fact that you are helping to kill your patient. That is a violation of your most fundamental mandate, and no fancy words can change that barbaric fact.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
351
A foolish argument. Medics throughout history have regularly engaged in Triage, deciding who lives and dies in the expectation of saving many. Perhaps you would argue against rebreaking a bone to set it properly. Or against medical quarantines. Or any number of other unpalatable yet necessary decisions that happen every day. Grow up.
2
My thoughts exactly.
Evidently you don't know what triage is. Triage divides patients into three categories - those who will survive without medical intervention, those who will die regardless of medical intervention, and those whose survival depends on medical intervention. Medical resources are then allocated to those whose survival depends on intervention, and that allocation does not in any way facilitate the deaths of those who will die regardless of intervention.
Triage is not analogous to execution.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
Triage is not analogous to execution.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
4
Basic common sense is wanting here. Everyone would recognize that hangman and rifleman and axeman are "executioners." But, an MD with a poison injection is a "doctor," who is said to be "providing comfort care."
Ludicrous?
Obscene?
Ludicrous?
Obscene?
419
What a genuinely deficient argument. Embarrassing.
2
BC And the doctor doesn't always relieve suffering. Sometimes the "meds" (ie poisons in this case) just don't work as they are supposed to...............even with the the "suffering relieving" doctor there.
Executions are ALWAYS cruel and unusual punishment. Having a doctor there does not lessen that fact.
Executions are ALWAYS cruel and unusual punishment. Having a doctor there does not lessen that fact.
1
Perhaps we should do away with the injections and go back to a proper hanging. Your point is well taken.
"First, do no harm."
Execution is harm. Saying you make it less painful is not an excuse to do that.
Execution is harm. Saying you make it less painful is not an excuse to do that.
139
Exactly. As a physician, I think it's abomination that another doctor would participate in an execution.
To the author of this article: justification is a powerful force. By participating in any way with executions (besides protesting them outside the prison gates), one becomes complicit.
To the author of this article: justification is a powerful force. By participating in any way with executions (besides protesting them outside the prison gates), one becomes complicit.
15
Thus saith a doctor who patriciates in executions and seems to need a general acceptance of his humanity. Scrape it off, doc: grow up and stop worrying about what others think about you. All that really matters is what you know about yourself.
29
No problem doc, we Republicans, who never met an execution we didn't like, have got your back. Just ignore those pantywaist, politically correct liberals at the American Medical Association.
3
As usual. another piece of provocative and soulless piece of writing from the contrarian in New Jersey.
Is it safe to assume, Mr. Luettgen needs his daily fix of riling the 80-85% Liberals that make up the NYT readership in order to get his blood pressure regulated and his self-esteem up to speed.
Why does this Gentleman get to publish as verified whatever without scrutiny - when nobody else can? Who does he know at the NYT?
Is it safe to assume, Mr. Luettgen needs his daily fix of riling the 80-85% Liberals that make up the NYT readership in order to get his blood pressure regulated and his self-esteem up to speed.
Why does this Gentleman get to publish as verified whatever without scrutiny - when nobody else can? Who does he know at the NYT?
4
CitizenTM:
Let's by all means have congressional hearings, manned solely by Democrats, of course, on who I may know at the New York Times. Who knows, a new category of "impeachment" might be devised.
Let's by all means have congressional hearings, manned solely by Democrats, of course, on who I may know at the New York Times. Who knows, a new category of "impeachment" might be devised.
His justification for physician participation in these activities follows in the tradition of French physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin.
Guillotin's surprising story can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph-Ignace_Guillotin