Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Education And Debate

Lethal injection: a stain on the face of medicine

BMJ 2002; 325 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.325.7371.1026 (Published 02 November 2002) Cite this as: BMJ 2002;325:1026

Rapid Response:

abolish death penalty , but comparison to Nazis unwarranted

The death penalty is uncivilzed and plain bad policy. By giving in
to emotional outrage, and killing the criminal, people create a cultural
atmosphere where it is sanctioned to kill people deliberately, if the
reason is weighty enough. This will tend to encourage more homicides, not
deter them.

However, to compare this to the actions of the Nazis, is totally
unwarranted, Great Britain had the death penalty during the war with
Germany. Physicians are not so holy that their participation in a bad
process demarcates the line between the what is merely bad and what is
unimaginable horror.

Competing interests:  
None declared

Competing interests: No competing interests

05 November 2002
Joseph More
Service Medical Director
Connecticut Valley Hospital, Middletown, CT 06457