Insights into the goal of peaceful dying: What can we learn from capital punishment?
Since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976, over 1000 people have been executed. Thirty-seven States and the Federal government now have capital statutes. In 2005 in sixteen States, fifty-nine men and one woman died—all by lethal injection, according to the U. S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Some prisoners have sued that death by lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. Meanwhile, physicians and nurses have shown increasing reluctance to participate. Hence the debate continues at many levels.
Just how peaceful is death by lethal injection? Actually, by three lethal injections? The order and purpose of each injection is: The first medication, a barbiturate, puts the condemned person to sleep. The second medication paralyzes the skeletal muscles so no signs of suffering are apparent to on-lookers. Finally a potassium salt stops the heart from beating to cause death.
This three-drug method was designed by a forensic pathologist named Dr. Jay Chapman in Oklahoma in 1977. Yet in 2006, Dr. Chapman told the New York Times that he now prefers an overdose of just one of these medications—the barbiturate—which is the method veterinarians use to end the lives of sick animals. He said that using just the one drug would painlessly cause prisoners to lose consciousness, stop breathing, and die. The only downsides are that it would take longer and on-lookers might see some jerking movements. But the prisoners would not be aware of either.
The three-drug method remains “popular” because it is fast and appears peaceful to those who watch. Yet a recent article in the British journal The Lancet, “Inadequate anaesthesia in lethal injection for execution,” presented these key results: 88% had blood barbiturate concentrations lower than that required for surgery, and 43% inmates had concentrations consistent with awareness. The authors' conclusion: “some inmates might experience awareness and suffering during execution.”
If there is awareness, the paralytic agent would produce extreme anxiety from the feeling of suffocation, and the potassium salt would cause extreme chest pain. In February 2006, a federal judge in California ruled that either a doctor must be present to ensure the prisoner was unconscious before injecting the second and third drugs, or only the barbiturate could be used for execution.
While debate continues among scientists about the results of the findings reported in The Lancet, there is little substantive scientific debate regarding whether barbiturates alone are peaceful… for executions, that is. Yet Dr. Bill Toffler, an opponent of Physician-Assisted Suicide offered his opinion: Using barbiturates to end the suffering of terminal patients did not appear peaceful since breathing “becomes irregular… for hours and hours.”
The question comes down to this: Do we want a method that appears peaceful or is peaceful? Perhaps because the argument is indirectly convincing, it is more compelling: The way terminal patients can choose to end their suffering under the present terms of Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, now in its eighth year, and the similar proposed law that California legislators are considering, the Compassionate Choices Act (AB 651), by ingesting a lethal dose of barbiturates, is definitely a peaceful way to die.
Some prisoners have sued that death by lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment. Meanwhile, physicians and nurses have shown increasing reluctance to participate. Hence the debate continues at many levels.
Just how peaceful is death by lethal injection? Actually, by three lethal injections? The order and purpose of each injection is: The first medication, a barbiturate, puts the condemned person to sleep. The second medication paralyzes the skeletal muscles so no signs of suffering are apparent to on-lookers. Finally a potassium salt stops the heart from beating to cause death.
This three-drug method was designed by a forensic pathologist named Dr. Jay Chapman in Oklahoma in 1977. Yet in 2006, Dr. Chapman told the New York Times that he now prefers an overdose of just one of these medications—the barbiturate—which is the method veterinarians use to end the lives of sick animals. He said that using just the one drug would painlessly cause prisoners to lose consciousness, stop breathing, and die. The only downsides are that it would take longer and on-lookers might see some jerking movements. But the prisoners would not be aware of either.
The three-drug method remains “popular” because it is fast and appears peaceful to those who watch. Yet a recent article in the British journal The Lancet, “Inadequate anaesthesia in lethal injection for execution,” presented these key results: 88% had blood barbiturate concentrations lower than that required for surgery, and 43% inmates had concentrations consistent with awareness. The authors' conclusion: “some inmates might experience awareness and suffering during execution.”
If there is awareness, the paralytic agent would produce extreme anxiety from the feeling of suffocation, and the potassium salt would cause extreme chest pain. In February 2006, a federal judge in California ruled that either a doctor must be present to ensure the prisoner was unconscious before injecting the second and third drugs, or only the barbiturate could be used for execution.
While debate continues among scientists about the results of the findings reported in The Lancet, there is little substantive scientific debate regarding whether barbiturates alone are peaceful… for executions, that is. Yet Dr. Bill Toffler, an opponent of Physician-Assisted Suicide offered his opinion: Using barbiturates to end the suffering of terminal patients did not appear peaceful since breathing “becomes irregular… for hours and hours.”
The question comes down to this: Do we want a method that appears peaceful or is peaceful? Perhaps because the argument is indirectly convincing, it is more compelling: The way terminal patients can choose to end their suffering under the present terms of Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, now in its eighth year, and the similar proposed law that California legislators are considering, the Compassionate Choices Act (AB 651), by ingesting a lethal dose of barbiturates, is definitely a peaceful way to die.
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