An Absolute: Doctors Don't Kill

That's the title of an OpEd in today's Raleigh News & Observer, written by Charles van der Horst, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  LINK  Here's an excerpt:

Since 1977, when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized executions after a five-year pause, more than a thousand people have been killed. The messiness of hanging, firing squads, electrocution and gas has limited the use of those methods, leaving lethal injection as the only acceptable option.

To be certain that this method is used satisfactorily, some courts or legislatures have decided that physicians must be available to assure proper procedure: that the intravenous lines are in place, that the correct doses of appropriate drugs are given and that the prisoner is actually dead. Thus, executions have become increasingly "medicalized."

In April 2006, a group of us doctors wrote to the N.C. Medical Board pointing out that state law required physicians be "present" at executions but that, in reality, physicians were almost always "participating" in executions, taking actions contrary to AMA ethical guidelines as well as to the oath of Hippocrates that physicians take upon graduation from medical school: "I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect."

The N.C. Medical Board subsequently adopted a policy in January 2007 stating that "any physician who engages in any verbal or physical activity that facilitates the execution may be subject to disciplinary action by this Board." This effectively halted executions (none has been conducted in North Carolina since Aug. 18, 2006) and has resulted in the current case before the state Supreme Court. The court is being asked to decide whether the Medical Board can prevent doctors from participating in executions.

IT IS IRONIC THAT SO LITTLE EFFORT ON THE PART OF A FEW PHYSICIANS could throw a moral monkey wrench into the machinery of death created by legislators and the courts. Life is rather simple for physicians. We don't worry about whether someone is a Jew or a Muslim, an illegal alien or a murderer, whether he has insurance or not. We simply take care of that person in front of us the best way we can, given the resources available. And we do not kill our patients.

Earlier coverage of the lethal injection issue in North Carolina is here.