Doctors' Willingness To Participate in the Death Penalty FREE

In the United States, some states require a doctor's involvement when lethal injections are given for the purposes of capital punishment (death penalty). However, major medical societies, such as the American Medical Association (AMA), believe that doctors should not participate in the death penalty. In a recent survey, most doctors said that it was acceptable for their colleagues to participate in the death penalty. However, it is not known whether doctors themselves would personally participate.

To explore if and why doctors are willing to be involved in carrying out the death penalty.

1000 practicing doctors selected at random from an AMA list of doctors in the United States. Not all of the doctors were members of the AMA.

The researchers mailed a survey to the 1000 doctors selected from the AMA list. The survey asked the doctors about themselves and their attitudes toward the death penalty. The survey also asked the doctors whether they would be willing to do each of the following 10 things: select injection sites, start intravenous lines for lethal injection, give the injection, monitor the prisoner during the injection, pronounce the prisoner dead, inspect the injection devices, supervise lethal injection personnel, order the drugs used in lethal injection for the prison pharmacy, prescribe tranquilizers for the prisoner the night before the execution, and sign the death certificate. They then calculated how often doctors were willing to do the first eight of these activities, which are prohibited by the AMA.

Of the 1000 doctors who were mailed a survey, 962 received it and 413 completed it. Of the responding doctors, 19% said they would be willing to actually give the lethal injection and 36% said they would be willing to pronounce the prisoner dead. Forty-one percent of the doctors would do at least one of the AMA-prohibited actions, 25% would do five or more, and 14% were willing to perform all eight prohibited actions. Not surprisingly, doctors in favor of the death penalty or those who perceived a duty to society were most willing to participate in the death penalty. Very few of the doctors knew of the AMA policy on participating in the death penalty.

Fewer than half of the surveyed doctors completed the survey. The doctors who answered the survey might not represent U.S. doctors as a whole. It is unknown whether the doctors would actually do what they said they would do.

Despite medical societies' policies against doctors' involvement in the death penalty, many physicians would be willing to participate. The medical profession needs to learn more about the ethical issues surrounding doctor participation in the death penalty.