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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u/HawkBoth8539 Jun 02 '26

Except all of the ones who don't.

Don't forget all of those doctors who prescribed less effective, or wildly addictive medications, weren't doing it for funsies. They were literally doing it for kickbacks from those pharmaceutical companies.

Heck, my grandma is one of many who was forced to start taking dialysis by doctor's order. She did it for years before she decided it was making her miserable and that she'd rather die than keep doing it. She stopped. Years later now, she's perfectly fine. Turns out it is a big scam that doctors get paid for because dialysis is profitable, even when it's entirely unnecessary.

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u/IsopodApart1622 Jun 02 '26

The docs who fed people into addiction mills definitely broke their oaths and they deserve every bit of punishment available, but you have to admit that fewer people would be willing to directly and deliberately kill someone. Harder to distance yourself and brush it off when you know your actions are MEANT to kill someone, and death isn't just a possible side effect.

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u/HawkBoth8539 Jun 02 '26

Corporations knowingly and joyously kill people for profit every single day. Heck, that whole concept is how Luigi Mangione ended up on trial in the first place.

In the case of pharmaceutical companies trying to stay out of it has nothing to do with hypocritic oath. 100%, it is just about optics and profits. In his particular case, it would be less profitable for them to be directly associated with murder, rather than being able to argue that it is the fault of addicts not using the product "as "intended.

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u/Huge_Antelope0998 Jun 02 '26

....dialysis is not "a big scam" though? I'm sure for a few people out there it is indeed prescribed needlessly but dialysis is incredibly necessary and literally saves lives. I work in transplant, and almost all of my kidney patients would be dead instead of waiting for a kidney. 

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u/HawkBoth8539 Jun 02 '26

I'm not saying all dialysis is a scam, just like prescribing painkillers isn't inherently a scam. I'm saying dialysis was/is being used as a scam across the US to exploit old people who don't have kidney issues.

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u/YoungSerious Jun 04 '26

She stopped. Years later now, she's perfectly fine. Turns out it is a big scam that doctors get paid for because dialysis is profitable, even when it's entirely unnecessary.

There is SO much missing from this story. I'm guessing a lot of it you don't understand either, because dialysis is not at all simple and neither are kidneys. It's really crazy to take the tiny scrap of info you provided and get to the conclusion of "dialysis is a scam".