AJN article
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Professional organizations, including the ANA, the International Council of Nurses, the American Medical Association (AMA), and the American Public Health Association, have expressed their opposition to members’ involvement in executions. The ANA position statement says: “The Code for Nurses, nursing’s ethical code of conduct, stipulates that ‘the nurse does not act deliberately to terminate the life of any person.’ The obligation to refrain from causing death is longstanding and should not be breached even when legally sanctioned.” Participation is defined as “assessment, supervision, or monitoring of the procedure or the prisoner; procuring, prescribing, or preparing medications or solutions; inserting the intravenous catheter; injecting the lethal solution; and attending or witnessing the execution as a nurse.” The AMA’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs likewise states that “a physician . . . should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution.”
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“Unlike other methods of execution, participation of health care professionals is essential for lethal injection,” writes Jonathan Groner in the November 2, 2002, issue of the British Medical Journal . “Medical skills are needed to start intravenous lines, set up intravenous infusion sets, and measure out and administer the appropriate drugs.” For example, at the execution of Jose High in Jackson, Georgia, in 2001, it was a nurse who first tried to start a peripheral IV line in the inmate. After about 30 minutes of unsuccessful attempts, a physician was called in to insert a central catheter in High’s right subclavian vein.
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Refusing to participate is not simple. According to Human Rights Watch, in the early 1980s California’s corrections department successfully lobbied against legislation that would have protected state-employed physicians who refused to participate in executions, retaining the right to force them to do so.
Although a few states, such as New Mexico, specifically exempt health care workers employed by the department of corrections from taking part in executions, in most states their participation remains a murky topic. This has led such critics as Groner to compare the practice to Nazi Germany’s euthanasia program, in which the state used clinicians to kill physically and mentally handicapped people.
Whether clinicians’ involvement in executions constitutes a violation of ethics isn’t obvious to all nurses. On an Internet nursing forum at
www.allnurses.com , a nurse recently posted the question, “I’m wondering if nurses administer lethal injection in places like [Texas] or any other states that take part in capital punishment. If so, what is the salary like?” To which another nurse replied, “How dare you try to steal my ideal job!!! I too am very interested in this kind of job.”— Dalia Sofer
Apologies but with a sensitive issue like this we have to be careful that we do not violate copyright and although copyright is very murky in the land of the internet "Fair usage" is usually allowed I have edited but left the important bits (I hope) . Gwenith
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