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Paige Ney

Mrs. Oberg

English 11

5 October 2016

Physicians and The Death Penalty

As the people in society change and the general views change, the view of the death penalty

changes. The death penalty is a hot topic in the general population of America today. Putting

someone to death because of their actions is debated about whether it is referring to the social,

economic, legal or moral obligations. One of the largest debated subtopics are of the death

penalty is a physician's part of the execution.This is greatly debated because of the contradictory

opinions on the topic of whether or not a physician should participate in the acting out of the

death penalty. One of the best places to look for the variety of these opinions on this topic is

procon.org. Which is a website with a large amount of information on the views and

contributions of many different people. A physician should not participate in the execution of

the death penalty in any way. This is because it violates the physicians shall do no harm and it

makes people think that doctors that undergo these executions are less safe.

A physician should not participate in the execution of someone on death row in any way

shape or form because it violates medical ethics. One expert in the subject states; “The use of a

physician's clinical skill and judgment for purposes other than promoting an individual's health

and welfare undermines a basic ethical foundation of medicine — first, do no harm” (The

American Medical Association). The foundation of the medical field is that no doctor or medical

professional should do no harm to any other being. This becomes a violation of that when a
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doctor performs an execution of the death penalty. Moral a doctor should not perform a death

penalty, it is the killing of another human being. The other people may not trust the doctor if they

have performed this procedure. The addition of a doctor is also adding an unrelated legal position

that the doctors have; “physicians should not be made a part of the legal apparatus for conducting

an execution.” (The society of Correctional Physicians). A doctor should not be involved with

the execution because of the clause. It shows the fact that legally a doctor should not participate

in the execution. The writers of this show the professionalism of a large organization stating why

it should or should not be in this case not, be taken care of.

Many people find it much more difficult to trust a physician that has participated in a part of the

execution of someone on the death penalty. The idea of executions has driven the people of these

big corporations to take action; “Execution by lethal injection has resulted in the incorrect

association of capital punishment with the practice of medicine, particularly anesthesiology”

(The American Society of Anesthesiologists). This shows the negative outlook of these big

corporations perspective of these death penalties being takeout. They are concerned about the

doctors losing their credibility after participating in these executions. Many of the doctors are

young and a little experienced in their works. Many of the people thinking that it in inappropriate

are uneducated; ”Execution should not be performed as part of a physician managed the medical

process, and pretending that physician involvement can be 'de-medicalized' by legislative and/or

judicial fiat is naive at best..” (The Society of Correctional Physician). The