Question

Make and support an argument about rather or not it is ethical for physician to participate in death row executions. Use at least one ethical principle to support your argument.

Answer 1

As a nurse Iam not supporting the capital punishment and medical professionals who is included in this process because most  of the people think human life is valuable .Even if one person conducted a brutal murder  value of the offender's life cannot be destroyed by the offender's bad conduct .Believe life should be preserved unless there is a solid reason not to.The most common and most cogent argument against capital punishment is that sooner or later, innocent people will get killed, because of mistakes or flaws in the justice system.physician participation in capital punishment violates the Hippocratic Oath, which states clearly that physicians should never do harm to anyone. How any physician, who is dedicated to “preserving life when there is hope,” can argue that taking the life of a healthy person because the law insists  it is in the patient’s best interest and does not conflict with the goals of medicine is beyond comprehension.The goal of physician in capital punishment appears to be to reduce pain and suffering, but in reality the physician’s participation only maximizes efficiency.

Although  death may ensue from the physician’s actions, the individual patient is voluntarily choosing to risk death upon withdrawal or withholding of care. With capital punishment, the physician is causing death against the will of the individual. Second, when life-sustaining treatment is discontinued, the patient’s death is caused primarily by the underlying disease; with capital punishment, the lethal injection causes the prisoner’s death.Statistics show that the death penalty leads to a brutalisation of society and an increase in murder rate. In the USA, more murders take place in states where capital punishment is allowed. In 2010, the murder rate in states where the death penalty has been abolished was 4.01 per cent per 100,000 people. In states where the death penalty is used, the figure was 5.00 per cent. These calculations are based on figures from the FBI. The gap between death penalty states and non-death penalty states rose considerably from 4 per cent difference in 1990 to 25 per cent in 2010.

physician-patient relationship is the primary focus of ethics in medicine. Trust is the bridge to the physician-patient relationship, and the burden is on the physician not only to expect the patient’s trust but also to build a solid foundation upon which the patient can place his or her trust. If this relationship becomes fractured, a loss of confidence will result, and the effect on the patient could be devastating. For prisoners to see their primary care physician also in the role of assisting in the execution undermines the credibility of the medical profession and is irreconcilable with the physician’s role as a healer.