If Doctors Should Not Execute, They Should Not Euthanize
There is a big furor in California over whether doctors should participate in executions. Many in bioethics and the media claim that it is unethical for doctors to cooperate in executions, since killing is not a medical act.
I have great sympathy for that view. But if that is true, it should go without saying that doctors should not participate in the intentional killing of patients because they are seriously ill or disabled (or as in the Netherlands, deeply depressed).
Oh, the issue is consent? What if a condemned prisoner wants to be executed rather than spend a lifetime in jail? I have heard anti-death penalty types actually argue that then, physician-hastened death would be fine.
Wrong. Killing is not a medical act. Doctors have no greater moral authority than anyone else, and no greater right to kill. If doctors should not execute, even though it is a consequence of a murderer's actions after receiving abundant due process of law, they should not euthanize.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 11:08 AM
8 Comments
8 Comments:
The California incident certainly doesn't support the scare talk that physicians will ignore their oaths and proceed to murder patients who don't want to die.
There is that little thing about consent and putting an end to pain, as opposed to causing pain and death where death is not even in the picture otherwise.
I think Wesley's point here is the opposite: the community of physicians is taking steps to make death with dignity a sacred trust, for which individuals and families may appeal to a physician for aid. Under those circumstances, they can hardly hold their noses when asked to enact an execution.
Do we serve the state, or does the state serve us?
Colin has it. Some of the very bioethicists who go into conniptions about doctors cooperating with executions, also say they should engage in euthanasia. If killing is not a medical act, it is not a medical act.
BTW, that is the position of the American Medical Association -- That assisting suicide is fundamentally inconsistent with the role of the physician.
FYI: http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/1933.html
Yes. Almost all professional medical associations in the world opposed euthanasia/assisted suicide.
If the state is going to execute murderers, then they should either be hanged or shot. Lethal injection is too clinical to began with.
Killing a human being (even a criminal who deserves it) is a violent act. It shouldn't be sugarcoated, and made similiar to a trip to the vet to put Fido to sleep.
The state serves us.
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