Health professionals around the world should speak out against execution, and use their influence to persuade the public and those in power that capital punishment is a cruel and senseless practice that has no place in the 21st century, states this week's lead Editorial.
Last week there were fresh moves at high levels towards achieving a worldwide ban when UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon put the abolition of the death penalty back on the UN agenda. Despite the execution of at least 2148 people in 22 countries in 2005, support for the death penalty is waning. Even in the USA—where last year for the first time in 20 years—a Gallup poll of the US public put the proportion of people in support of life imprisonment without parole ahead of those voting for the death penalty. Furthermore, the use of lethal injection is currently facing some major legal challenges in the USA, where the death penalty is currently on hold in ten States, after some recent badly mishandled executions with this method.
The Editorial concludes: "Put simply, ban the death penalty and there will be no ethical or moral conundrum for anyone."
In an accompanying Comment, Leonidas Koniaris (University of Miami, Fl, USA) and colleagues debate the use of lethal injection and state: "It is an abominable perversion of the tools of healing. Participation by physicians and scientists in perfecting medical execution is morally wrong. Judicial or executive commandeering of medical tools and personnel to kill is wrong. The expertise of doctors and biomedical researchers was developed by individuals, institutions, and science dedicated to saving and improving human lives. Appropriating that knowledge to kill is an appalling betrayal of the core values of medical research."
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Comment Dr Leonidas Koniaris, University of Miami, USA. T) +1 305 243 1684 lkoniaris@med.miami.edu
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The Lancet