By the end of April, the state of Arkansas will have given four prisoners the death penalty in just one month. The state’s chosen method of execution is lethal injection. To administer the deadly drugs, the prisoner has to have an IV inserted and then be monitored to ensure the drugs have successfully ended their life. Some states, including Arkansas, require a medical professional be on hand during executions to watch over the procedure and help the prisoner pass peacefully.
The American Medical Association (AMA) has come out against the use of doctors during executions, saying that participating in them goes against a doctor’s Hippocratic Oath to do no harm.
Medical ethicist and the director of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center Art Caplan agrees with the AMA. He joined Boston Public Radio Monday to discuss why Doctors should not participate in executions.
“I think the state, if they want to execute people, should have executioners, not doctors,” said Caplan. “There should be executioners to make it clear that that's what the state, in this case, Arkansas, is doing. They are executing people, not treating them, not doing humane things, not making them comfortable, they are executing them.”
Caplan says that the skills needed to administer the lethal injection can easily be learned and don’t require a doctor to be present. In fact, Caplan believes that the mere presence of a doctor at an execution helps to normalize and understate the severity of the death penalty.
“It starts to make it more acceptable because doctors do it,” said Caplan. "I’m not talking about pain and suffering, I'm just talking about the image of having a person with a white coat and a stethoscope around doesn’t seem like an execution, it seems like an assisted suicide. I think it is a bad idea,” said Caplan.
