In an expan­sion of their stance oppos­ing nurse par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions, the American Nurses Association (ANA) announced on February 21, 2017 that the orga­ni­za­tion now for the first time oppos­es cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment itself. ​“Capital pun­ish­ment is a human rights vio­la­tion, and ANA is proud to stand in strong oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty,” ANA President Pamela F. Cipriano said. ​“All human beings, regard­less of their crimes, should be treat­ed with dig­ni­ty. For those states where cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is cur­rent­ly legal, the American Nurses Association will con­tin­ue to pro­vide eth­i­cal guid­ance, edu­ca­tion, and resources for nurs­es and oth­er health care providers deal­ing with these eth­i­cal dilem­mas.” The ANA had long opposed nurs­es par­tic­i­pat­ing in the death penal­ty in any role, adopt­ing that posi­tion in 1983. ​“The drafters of the sub­com­mit­tee were ini­tial­ly sup­port­ers of the death penal­ty until they start­ed doing research,” Liz Stokes, the senior pol­i­cy advi­sor for the ANA Center for Ethics and Human Rights, said. But as they stud­ied the issue, she said, they were moved by the body of evi­dence show­ing prob­lems in the way it was admin­is­tered. Ultimately, the ANA’s board of direc­tors unan­i­mous­ly adopt­ed the new posi­tion. The ANA state­ment offers nine rea­sons for the asso­ci­a­tion’s oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty, includ­ing racial­ly and geo­graph­i­cal­ly biased appli­ca­tion, the risk of exe­cut­ing inno­cent peo­ple, botched exe­cu­tions, and high costs. The new posi­tion aligns with the International Council of Nurses, which ​“con­sid­ers the death penal­ty to be cru­el, inhu­man and unac­cept­able,” and reflects a grow­ing con­sen­sus among med­ical orga­ni­za­tions that par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions by med­ical pro­fes­sion­als is uneth­i­cal. The American Medical Association, American Board of Anesthesiology, and American Pharmacists Association, among oth­ers, have dis­cour­aged or for­bid­den their mem­bers from par­tic­i­pat­ing in exe­cu­tions and American phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers have adopt­ed poli­cies seek­ing to pre­vent mis­use of their med­i­cines as execution drugs.

(K. Bellware, ​“Leading Nurses Association Takes Official Stance Against Death Penalty,” The Huffington Post, February 22, 2017; Press Release, ​“ANA Releases New Position Statement Opposing Capital Punishment,” American Nurses Association, February 21, 2017; ​“Capital Punishment and Nurses’ Participation in Capital Punishment,” American Nurses Association, February 21, 2017.) See New Voices and Lethal Injection.

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