Lethal Injections

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Recommended: Ethical dilemma in euthanasia cases

The American Medical Association (AMA) adopted its Code of Medical Ethics in 1847 during its founding meeting. The late 1840’s were a different time; a time where telegraphs were being produced and used across the divided north and south nation of what is now U.S.A. This difference in time also created a code for doctors to follow if a patient wished a suicide assisted be a physician, or a lethal injection for prison inmates on death row. The current Code of Medical Ethics, revised in June 2016, believes that doctors need to uphold their role as healers (AMA, 2016). Doctors should be able to perform lethal injections due to a possibility of other non-medically trained personnel performing the procedure and end up with the criminal undergoing …show more content…

The AMA’s belief that doctors are only healers is a belief from the 17th century. It is 2016, and times have changed along with the technology that can make death as comfortable as can be. The process of lethal injections used currently in the state of California includes the injection of three different drugs. The first step is to inject five grams of thiopental a fast acting anesthetic sodium that depresses the central nervous system that causes mild sedation, sleep or unconsciousness in this case. Second, 50 or 100 milligrams of pancuronium bromide is given to block the neuromuscular system and cause paralysis. Finally, 50 or 100 milliequivalents of potassium chloride induce cardiac arrest (Michael Angelo Morales v. Roderick Q. Hickman, 2006). This court case mostly argues that Mr. Morales (plaintiff) is against the method the state of California uses a painful process and is against the eighth amendment that includes “cruel and unusual punishment.” According to chapter 5 section 8, “The involvement of physicians in euthanasia heightens the significance of its ethical prohibition.” This goes back to doctors not being able to perform lethal injections, but Morales v. Hickman argued that the method needs to be fixed to be …show more content…

The location of the procedure was held at the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, and Charles Brooks Jr. was the first one up to the lethal injection. With this being the first lethal injection procedure there were of course many doctors siding with the AMA that doctors shouldn’t preform these kinds of procedures to harm patients. During the event of Charles Brooks execution, the doctors were only able to watch the procedure and give barely enough information to the wardens to execute this man (Gawande, 2006). This procedure was then botched with the unexperienced wardens performing procedures that they aren’t capable

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