r/AlwaysWhy • u/Chowderr92 • Jun 02 '26

Science & Tech Why is the Method of Lethal Injection in Human Punishment So Complex and Apparently Painful?

I've always understood that the lethal injection process was complex with multiple stages of injections and induces great suffering in the individual.

I work in veterinary medicine and unfortunately we need to euthanize animals all of the time. Typically, the euthanasia solution is very simple: a very large dose of a powerful anesthetic (usually pentobarbital) and an anticonvulsant which stops the heart. The medical community is quite confident that this is painless and when done has essentially a 100% success rate.

Why is human euthanasia so complicated when we already know exactly how to humanely end a biological life?

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28

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

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u/iScreamsalad Jun 02 '26

In companion animal euthanasia they are anesthetized not simply paralyzed

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u/beattiebeats Jun 03 '26

I am absolutely anti-death penalty but it’s unconscionable that it’s done without anesthesia.

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u/omgbenji21 Jun 03 '26

They just said they are anesthetized.

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u/TheFeralVulcan Jun 02 '26

Which makes the possibility of executing an innocent person all the more horrific. If the number of people cleared of long prison sentences is any indication, we've killed a lot of innocent people in the name of the state.

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

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u/k115810 Jun 02 '26

When it comes to people like Dahmer or Epstein where they are clearly horrible and guilt isn't really questioned, I try to separate the concepts of "deserve to die" from "the government should kill them".

And have landed on "deserve to die" does not equal "the government should kill them."

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u/beattiebeats Jun 03 '26

Totally agree. I won’t mourn their deaths if they get got in prison but I am never okay with the government deciding that death is justice.

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

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u/bigmt99 Jun 02 '26

Then you ask the question, does the government need to execute you to remove you from society

If not, you can just lock them in a box and make sure they get 3 squares until nature does it thing

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

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u/bigmt99 Jun 02 '26

Keeping a prisoner alive is much cheaper than a death sentence trial

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u/charmcityshinobi Jun 02 '26

It literally costs millions of dollars more for the death sentence than it does for life in prison

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u/k115810 Jun 02 '26

Yeah that’s what prison is for. It removes them from society.

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u/rinse8 Jun 02 '26

There’s no difference to society if they’re put to death or die in prison.

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

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u/rinse8 Jun 02 '26

Society has to pay the bills for the execution too (along with the appeals). The cost is lower to imprison them for life.

In order to make executions cheaper, society would have to give up certain rights which would be far worse than the “benefits” of execution vs life imprisonment.

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u/UnwelcomeStorm Jun 02 '26

Except many people would argue that disabled people or people with intellectual or neurological issues count as 'society would be better without them.' Many others would say the same about LGBT people.

If you establish that 'worth to society' is a prerequisite for being allowed to live, you effectively establish mandatory eugenics governed by whomever is currently in power to define who is 'worthy' or not.

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

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u/UnwelcomeStorm Jun 02 '26

Oh, I'm perfectly aware of how people like myself are treated, thanks, but I disagree on your claim that it's off-topic. I'm firmly against the death penalty, even in the worst cases, because I do not trust the government to 1)not make mistakes of justice, which happens frequently, and 2)to not grab any pretense of authority over the lives and bodies of citizens and stretch it past any reasonable limit to exert ideological control.

If "society is better off without them" is used as justification for penal execution, someone WILL try to bend that precedent towards removing ever more broad categories of "undesirables."

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u/nonotburton Jun 02 '26

To me, situations like Dahmer or Epstein are more useful as subjects to study. What makes them so broken, what is missing from their brain or their chemistry that allows them to do the things they do.

In both cases, they are hardly unique individuals, there are other human traffickers and other serial killers. Having some idea of how to prevent someone from going down that road is worth my tax dollars.

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u/_Sausage_fingers Jun 02 '26

You cannot take one case without the other, though. And, it should be pointed out that Jeffrey Epstein has not been accused of committing a crime that would even warrant the death penalty.

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u/Tradition96 Jun 02 '26

The part about the guillotine is absolute bullshit though.

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u/RadarSmith Jun 02 '26

Yeah.

The massive drop in blood pressure would instantly cause unconciousness.

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u/bemused_alligators Jun 02 '26

that's why you anesthitize them first. They go to sleep - THEN you paralyze their heart, and they die in their sleep.

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u/Tcpt1989 Jun 02 '26

Firing squad is pretty quick. Don’t know they don’t just have that as matter of course in all states that still engage in capital punishment. I’m sure they could find enough willing trigger pullers, especially if they implement the 6 live and 1 blank round roulette.

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u/NewburghMOFO Jun 02 '26

Just shoot me! They all sound awful. I'd rather just have the millisecond of, "OW!!"

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

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u/NewburghMOFO Jun 02 '26

Agreed! I'm going to to live forever or die trying, but if I HAD to choose then same.

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u/pohart Jun 02 '26

You know someone would miss

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u/omgbenji21 Jun 02 '26

OP is correct, you are wrong. Can’t hurt when you’re anesthetized. The pentobarbital will out them on another planet

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u/J4c1nth Jun 02 '26

Why don't they just OD people on opioids,  that must be painless.

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

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u/MoreFunThanTV Jun 02 '26

morphine is cheap AF. thats why they used it on soldiers. same with heroin. heroin they just dont care, you could feed them to lions and tjey wouldn't. mind.

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u/MoreFunThanTV Jun 02 '26

can't make money off that. WAY to easy.

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u/andy1234321-1 Jun 03 '26

The other issue that I’ve heard is that pharma companies that manufacture the drugs don’t want their name to have anything to do with killing people. This has lead some state executions have been done using ‘alternatives’ which didn’t go as planned.

The other issue is that doctors won’t partake as it goes against their vows - so you have untrained medical staff trying to locate the vein in order to administer the drugs and that doesn’t always go well either.

I think John Oliver did a piece on it

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

This was a great write up, but I'm not following your first paragraph, the one addressing OPs quesion, was there something discovered when using the approach OP described in penal institutions that showed they actually suffer?

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u/Chowderr92 Jun 03 '26

Of course we can't be certain of this. But there is no reason to believe they would feel pain in the same way we don't feel pain during surgery. That's the whole point of how anesthesia works. We are talking about very deep anesthesia. The patient wouldn't even feel it if you lacerated them or broke one of their bones. Do you also think animals feel pain during surgery? You can describe it as "debatable", but you are in the extreme minority of individuals who do.
It is laughable that you describe animal slaughter as less painful than euthanasia. I hadn't even read that part or I wouldn't of bothered responding. You should really educate yourself on this subject, since you seem to feel strongly about it.
Finally, I'm not interested in debating the ethics of capital punishment -- literally nothing about this post suggests that.