Article of Interest: Cato Institute Fellow Critiques Medical Ethics Double Standard Around Executions

In a February blog post, Cato Institute Senior Fellow Jeffrey A. Singer criticizes the use of medicalized lethal injection, highlighting the double standard under which procedures that medical professionals are ethically barred from carrying out are not only allowed, but required, of law enforcement personnel. “A doctor who intentionally performs cruel and medically unjustifiable procedures that cause pain and suffering could face criminal charges. If the patient dies, the doctor could face homicide charges,” Mr. Singer writes. “Apparently, those rules don’t apply to law enforcement.”

He describes the “unnecessary and avoidable pain and suffering” caused by botched lethal injections in Arizona and under federal jurisdiction. He then explains that nearly every professional organization in the healthcare field considers it unethical for its members to participate in executions. As a result, states have turned to “underground sources” of lethal injection drugs and used prison staff, “many with no medical training,” to perform executions.

Mr. Singer concludes with a stark statement of the ethical quandary presented by lethal injections: “Doctors who violate medical ethics face prosecution — when the state does it, they call it justice.”

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