Lethal injec­tion as prac­ticed in U.S. exe­cu­tions ​“is an imper­son­ation of med­i­cine pop­u­lat­ed by real doc­tors who don’t acknowl­edge the decep­tion,” Dr. Joel Zivot (pic­tured), an anes­the­si­ol­o­gist and asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of anes­the­si­ol­o­gy at Emory University School of Medicine, writes in an op-ed for CNN. Setting aside the ques­tion of the right­ness or wrong­ness of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment itself, he says, ​“it’s time to reject lethal injec­tion” as the method of exe­cu­tion. Dr. Zivot’s op-ed describes how the med­ical­iza­tion of exe­cu­tions has cre­at­ed an eth­i­cal prob­lem for doc­tors. He cites as an exam­ple the recent Virginia exe­cu­tion of Ricky Gray, which used mida­zo­lam and potas­si­um chlo­ride from a com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy, along with a par­a­lyt­ic drug. He calls lethal injec­tion, ​“a trick of chem­istry” that ​“does not cause a cru­el­ty-free death,” explain­ing, ​“Virginia used a par­a­lyt­ic drug that may obscure the fail­ure of mida­zo­lam to cre­ate the sort of deep uncon­scious­ness con­tem­plat­ed by lethal injec­tion pro­po­nents.” He says that, because lethal injec­tion ​“approx­i­mates a med­ical act,” it ​“fall[s] with­in the purview of physi­cians who now find them­selves wit­ting­ly or unwit­ting­ly cast in the role of exe­cu­tion advis­er.” These physi­cians must choose between their pro­fes­sion’s eth­i­cal pro­hi­bi­tion against killing — both the American Medical Association and the American Board of Anesthesiology have issued state­ments con­demn­ing physi­cian involve­ment in exe­cu­tions — and their eth­i­cal imper­a­tive to reduce suf­fer­ing, espe­cial­ly in the face of botched exe­cu­tions. ​“An inmate fac­ing death is not a patient by virtue of being con­nect­ed to an intra­venous device and hav­ing a doc­tor in a lab coat stand­ing by. Physicians can only work with patient con­sent,” Zivot says. He asks, ​“What is the role of the doc­tor in the exe­cu­tion cham­ber? When does the alle­vi­at­ing of suf­fer­ing become physi­cian-assist­ed homi­cide?” Because of these eth­i­cal dilem­mas, and the fail­ure of lethal injec­tion to offer a cru­el­ty-free exe­cu­tion, Zivot con­cludes, ​“If cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment con­tin­ues, it needs another method.”

(J. Zivot, ​“Executions often put physi­cians in unfair dilem­ma,” CNN, January 19, 2017.) See Lethal Injection.

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