Introduction

The role of doctors and other health professionals has been, paradoxically, both important and marginal in the development of the death penalty. It has been important to the extent that physicians have contributed to the development of execution techniques, to the acceptability of execution in the public eye, and to pressure for reform. But it has been marginal inasmuch as the state does not need the presence of a physician to bring about the death of the condemned. The oscillation between importance and marginality covers the territory of a very important human rights and ethical discussion. In this chapter we discuss the evolution of professional ethics towards a restrictive view of physician participation and examine future challenges posed by the death penalty to the ethics of health professionals. Our viewpoint reflects our belief that the most humane and life-affirming position that could be adopted by health professionals would be to work for the abolition of capital punishment.

Information on the role of health professionals in the contemporary application of the death penalty in most retentionist countries is sketchy, and even in the country which is the most openly reported on, the United States, there remain dark corners into which the light of scrutiny does not reach. Photographs of public executions in some countries show men in white coats, presumably doctors, examining corpses tied to stakes – doctors playing the traditional role of verifying death by execution.