Lethal Injections

Great Essays
What role should medical personnel play in giving treatment to a patient who has to die from a terminal illness or a court order? While we know the patient’s fate would be death, it has been controversial in the federal and the medical world on whether medical personnel should assist in state executions, involving lethal injections. The 8th amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, such as executing an inmate by a firing squad, hanging, or electrocution. To carry out this law, the courts require medical personnel assistance, for example in tasks like placement of intravenous lines, monitoring of consciousness, adjustment in medication timing and dosage in state executions (Gawande ). This makes execution through lethal injections a medical procedure to minimize inmate’s suffering. …show more content…
Unfortunately, the American Medical Association has strictly declared that it is a violation against medical ethics if doctors participate in any role of state executions, which encourages many medical personnel to ignore inmates under the death penalty as potential patients. The only realistic solution that would satisfy both the federal and medical world is to continue to train state executioners to medically carry out this procedure. However, even with an improvement in this system, there are doubts that state executioners will have the medical expertise or long term psychological motivation to carry out such a complex procedure. In lieu of the fixed medical and federal protocols, medical personnel are needed to carry out state executions in the most professional manner that will ensure inmate’s suffering is minimized. First of all, in a lethal injection execution system without medical personnel, one must asked is for the state executioners’ qualifications. Do they have the basic medical skills necessary to carry out the lethal injection procedure? The problem is that these questions can not be answered precisely because states are not allowed to provide any information of the people on the execution team (USA). As a result, we do not know the exact qualifications of these state executioners, which lead to questioning if the current system is providing qualified executioners that can minimize unnecessary suffering for the inmate. While others may argue that there are official witnesses who oversee the state executioners from crossing ethical boundaries, they are misinformed. In a journal, Meditation on Lethal Injection, authors Robert Johnson and Rachel Ternes tell us the reality is state executions are highly unregulated that makes it difficult to ensure an inmate’s suffering is minimized. According to the article, official witnesses see nothing because executioners often work behind curtains to shield witnesses from details of the killing process (digital). In fact, state executioners administered new and untested drugs, and official witnesses report inmates to feel normal (digital). However, Johnson and Ternes tell us several inmates in their death throes would report they had intense burning sensations that suggest asphyxiation, which occurs when the procedure did not include proper anesthesia. This shows how a system with trained state executioners to take on a medical role cannot be trusted to carry out the 8th amendment. If medical personnel like anesthesiologist was present to administer the dosage and type of …show more content…
Is this even possible to enforce a system where state executioners are well trained like medical personnel? The truth is even some state executioners who are trained still faced challenges of inserting an IV or administering the drug without inserting unnecessary suffering. Even upon gaining every necessary medical skills, will state executioners be willing to stay for the long term? We may exert so much resources training people like Jerry Given -and__- only to have them quit because the procedure calls for even more experiences or psychological confidences. We have yet to question how willing are these state executioners are to gain the medical expertise as one like a doctor, nurse, or anesthesiologist. All in all, we have to speak of this improved system with unrealistic optimism to satisfy both medical and federal worlds. What role should doctors play in state execution when we can not practically have an execution system without them? Our only option is to depend on medical personnel to participate in state executions to ensure inmates are not treated inhumanely. The AMA and federal protocols might not be right, but denying inmates as patients by leaving them to suffer unnecessary suffering is inhumane. The role of a doctor as a healer is also to minimize unnecessary suffering to any patients,

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Shemtob And Lat Analysis

    • 633 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In particular, the authorization of an execution varies from state to state. For example, the state of Utah in March 2015 reauthorized a firing squad in the event that the drugs for lethal injection are unavailable. Consequently, views from the government change as to what is an acceptable form of execution, but the empathy we can show for the convict, during an execution, on their last day does not need to…

    • 633 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Richard Selzer’s “Mercy” explores the idea of a medical murder, from a morphine injection to a not so medical strangulation thought. The paranoid doctor contemplates his morals as a suffering man is on his death bed. In this doctor’s mind, there is a difference between murder for medical purposes and just plain murder. Murders, or at least the murders portrayed on TV shows, are almost…

    • 686 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Supreme Court Case Study

    • 945 Words
    • 4 Pages

    This case holds significant value to not only the state of Kentucky but also the other forty-nine states. Lethal injections when properly performed are quick, cost effective, and not as torturous as the electric chair or hanging a person. This process benefits the states in a few ways. These benefits are as follows: less taxes being…

    • 945 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Now, Clayton Lockett is not the first to die from a botched lethal injection. Since “1985…over twenty-five botched executions have been reported, mostly based on direct observation” (Groner, Hippocratic, 2008, 896). Not only that, but lethal injections are supposed to be a humane way to die. In Lockett’s case and in others it was not. The physician could do nothing for him to try to save him so that the execution could take place another day.…

    • 1576 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A case that has evoked some outrage is the state of Arkansas medicating a mentally ill inmate, Charles Singleton, to make him mentally competent to execute the death penalty. This particular case provides mixed emotions and views of the judicial decision to follow through with the original conviction of Mr. Singleton. Furthermore, this provides evidence that the law and legal process needs an overhaul to fairly prosecute the mentally ill. The background behind this case of Charles Singleton is…

    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Should Physician-Assisted Suicide Be Legal in Every State When it comes to the topic of physician-assisted suicide, most of will readily agree that the patient has their right to choose their form of treatment; if they chose death, then the reasoning is that they chose to die with dignity. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of, does allowing patients to die under a doctor’s care deem the death as murder. Some are convinced that it does, other maintain that allowing patients to do so in tern, breaks the Hippocratic Oath. Here in the states, we are very fortunate with every law and amendment that gives us the right to do with what we want with limits.…

    • 1619 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The previous section outlined how interpretation or understanding of the Hippocratic Oath provides arguments for and against Euthanasia being considered medical care. However, I find that the Oath, even if not taken literally, shapes a special ethic in medicine that should continue to be upheld. The spirit of the Oath, as mentioned earlier, offers to patients a sense of what they expect from their physicians- ultimate care. It took years to form the long-standing ethical norms in the patient-physician relationship and allowing physicians to euthanize patients threatens this central norm. Physicians enter the profession, or patients at least hope, with the intention of caring for patients.…

    • 1238 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Statement of Issue Physician-assisted suicide is legalized in five U.S. states: California, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. By state law, individuals with a terminal illness as well as six or less months to live have the choice to take. Physicians who prescribe medications to accelerate death in these states cannot be legally prosecuted. Participation by the physician is entirely voluntary, however, there are several emotional and psychological tolls that physicians may face after prescribing medication to a patient that can lead to the death of the patient. Doctors have explained being extremely negatively affected by the abruptness of death and having a sense of seclusion and helplessness as well as having to deal with some legal…

    • 805 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Since the medical definition of justice does not include the moral rightness clause, it only concerns itself with making sure every party’s is treated in the most fair manner possible. This is exactly what the alteration of the Ford v. Wainwright decision is trying to accomplish, equal treatment for all inmates on death row. Medical ethics does not confine itself to just the pursuit of justice in its practice, it also centers itself around autonomy, beneficence, and nonmaleficence. Currently a physician could potentially be forced to compromise their promise to uphold the principles of autonomy, beneficence and nonmaleficence, and therefore break Hippocratic Oath in order to medicate inmates to make them competent enough for execution. A physician is not violating a patient autonomy if he or she is forcibly medicating an inmate because they were not mentally competent.…

    • 1453 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    I. Physician-assisted suicide, under various names and colloquial definitions, has been a documented ethical issue for centuries – not to mention an undocumented ethical issue since the hypothetical dawn of life. By common understanding, physician-assisted suicide is death either directly or indirectly permitted or carried out by a physician. In simple terms, an “out” is provided. For this reason, it is often associated with chronic pain or terminal illness. Suicide where the doctor in charge is directly involved is perhaps the first situation which comes to mind when one thinks of euthanasia.…

    • 2007 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    If doctors are enabled the decision to terminate a life on behalf of a unconscious patient, they would be then granted a power over society that not only breaches the Hippocratic Oath, but also empowers them to “play God”. This responsibility could then reflect upon society, altering their views and their trust within doctors and medical professionals as they could then be seen as “providers of death” (Cosic, 2003. 25) In addition to this, a doctor’s decision to terminate a life may not rely on the condition and best interests of the patient, but instead of amount of hospital beds and facilities that are…

    • 2101 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Physician-Assisted Suicide Thesis: With today’s medical advancements and innovations, along with evolving human beliefs, patients no longer have to die a long and agonizing death. I. Introduction A. Good morning B. V.P. of Chronic Disease Prevention and Management at American Medical Association. I am an MD, as well a Fellow, at the American Heart Association and American Academy of Family Physicians. Advocate for America’s physicians before Congress and the Administration on Capitol Hill. Assure that medicine has a cohesive voice in Washington to achieve legislative goals.…

    • 534 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Physician-Assisted Suicide Essay Outline I. Introduction - There is a controversial debate throughout the United States for the last decade regarding physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, many believe having a Doctor prescribe a self-administered lethal drug to a patient is diminishing the value of life. While others believe this method should be the patients’ right to choice when the pain and suffering from a life threatening illness should cease. II. Main Point # 1 - Will Physician-…

    • 824 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the article “Should I Help My Patients Die?”, Jessica Nutik Zitter, a critical care and palliative medicine doctor at Highland Hospital, argues that special qualifications and training should be required for doctors to perform the lethal injection in order to guarantee that each patient gets properly evaluated and the doctor does not feel the emotional distress that comes with making this decision without proper training. Zitter describes how she felt when her first patient asked her for the lethal medication, while she understood their medical prognosis and that it was their legal right to request it from her; she asked herself was it still fair for her to say no? Another problem that she brings up is that the procedure is not covered by…

    • 857 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Purpose Of Punishment

    • 733 Words
    • 3 Pages

    It is obvious that the main issue is whether to heal a prisoner simply for the purpose of execution or otherwise. The basic undertone to this argument could be whether the government authority has the power to force prisoners or citizens to take drugs without their consent regardless of their status. Another point of argument could be making a prisoner sane before execution is rational or a good reasoning before killing. In this scenario, Charles Laverne Singleton is a prisoner on death row, and he is awaiting execution for the crime of felony capital murder. Singleton became insane while in prison, it can be inferred that his insanity is related to the approaching date of execution.…

    • 733 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics