No role for physicians in executions: Going against the oath

Court action regarding California's lethal injection procedure required physicians to take a strong ethical position.

Editorial. March 27, 2006.

The recent delay of a legally authorized execution in California has catapulted a question of medical ethics to the center of the controversial subject of capital punishment.

The issue for physicians is not whether they, as individuals, consider the death penalty moral or immoral, just or unjust. It is also not whether Michael Morales, 46, convicted of the 1983 rape and murder of 17-year-old Terry Winchell, deserves this fate.

The matter at hand for medicine is whether dedicated health professionals who take an oath to be healers can ethically have a role in the death chamber. The answer, according to the American Medical Association, is no.

Last month, the Morales case became a flashpoint for debate regarding the use of lethal injection. Two court-appointed anesthesiologists who had agreed initially to attend the execution reconsidered upon learning the details of an order by U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel.

Morales' attorneys argued before Fogel that lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, citing some recent evidence indicating the mixture can take several minutes to cause death. Fogel responded with an order that would have required the physicians to determine Morales was properly anesthetized while prison officials administered a cocktail of paralytic and heart-stopping drugs.

The AMA immediately took issue with the judge's directive, which the Association said disregarded physicians' ethical obligations. And the Association, along with the California Medical Assn. and the American Society of Anesthesiologists, viewed these two physicians' ultimate decision as the right thing to do.