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‘Astonishingly cruel’: Alabama seeks to test execution method on death row ‘guinea pig’
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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First off, I am against the death penalty. I suppose there are hypothetical scenarios were there may be some remorseless person who committed horrific crimes and for whom there is absolutely no doubt of guilt, and maybe then we can justify removing them from the world permanently. But in the real world, the death penalty is not limited to such scenarios. Innocents have been and continue to be executed. This is unacceptable.
But, if we aren't going to eliminate it, at the very least we can avoid unneeded suffering during it. As I understand it, nitrogen asphyxiation is a comparatively peaceful way to go. So this headline smells of bullshit to me.
It’s experimental. No institutional review board in the country could ethically ask this guy to volunteer for such an experiment, simply because of the coercive power dynamics inherent in asking such a thing of a prisoner. But the government can, by fiat, decide to experiment on him, and you’re ok with that? Even if “nitrogen asphyxiation is a comparatively peaceful way to go,” human medical experimentation qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment; otherwise, what’s the point of banning cruel and unusual punishment?
The only experiment is doing it to humans. It's used to kill chickens by the thousands. Because it causes them less stress, leading to better tasting meat.
Right. So it’s human medical experimentation on a prisoner. Which, ask any social scientist, is some seriously fucked up, unethical shit.
So the method has passed animal testing... What are the next steps in your opinion?
Someone who meets euthanasia standards in a state volunteers to do it.
If I was terminal, it's something I'd consider. For science.
But I don't think I'd do it so they can kill people with less remorse.
Talked myself into a corner there. But a bloodless, mess-less, painless way to die could be useful to people who want to die with dignity.
In my opinion, the only morally acceptable next step is abolishing the death penalty. But, if I objected solely on the basis of the medical experimentation angle, an extensive formal review of the body of evidence by a panel of actual medical experts, plus not using as a subject a guy who already underwent one botched execution, at the very least?
It's only experimental in that it's never been done before, everyone knows exactly what's going to happen and it's been closen because it's more humane than exciting options.
“It’s only experimental in that it’s never been done before…”
Why yes, that’s right. Which is what “experimental” means. Assuming you know what will happen before trying something is deeply unscientific.
It's not like it's unstudied new science, experiments on prisoners are such a well known bad thing because people did cruel experiments which treated the subjects as objects - this is choosing what's known to be an effective way to painlessly die over a more painful and less effective method.
And yes we know what's going to happen, nitrogen isn't a new thing and people have asphyxiated due to it before (over a hundred people in the US in the last thirty years), just not when it's been purposefully administered in a prison.
It isn't experimental is the way the word is normally used. We know what the effects of nitrogen asphyxiation are. People are accidentally killed by it all the time. If were going to have a death penalty (and I would argue we shouldn't) then we should seek less cruel ways to do it, which nitrogen asphyxiation is.