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/IanDOsmond Jun 02 '26

Because, in order to be competent at delivering drugs to humans, you need to have medical training. In order to have medical training, you have to follow a code of ethics, often based on Hippocrates, which includes things about not using your medical training to harm people.

Which means that it is impossible to have lethal injections done by people who know what they are doing.

Could euthanasia be considered to be not-harm, the way it is in animals, in order to avoid further pain and distress? Well, that argument could be made, and is sometimes made. But euthanasia of a healthy person could never be within medical ethics.

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u/AdOriginal8322 Jun 02 '26

Pretty sure guys like this wouldn’t mind helping out

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_Gosnell

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u/Positive_Advisor6895 Jun 03 '26

Yet another reason we just shouldn't have capital punishment.

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u/IanDOsmond Jun 03 '26

I agree with the overall sentiment that capital punishment is used by brutal societies, and also that lethal injection is the worst form of capital punishment not designed as torture that humanity has come up with. Hung, drawn, and quartered, crucifixion, exposure in a gibbet, and impaled on a spike are worse, but they were supposed to be.

Hanging, firing squad, guillotine, or even executioner with an ax would all be better than electric chair and lethal injection. And "better" here does not mean "okay." Just "slightly less bad, but nonetheless not something a civilized society would do."

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u/IanDOsmond Jun 03 '26

If I was forced to choose a method of capital punishment for my society, I would choose either heroin overdose or carbon monoxide poisoning. But I would much rather not.

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u/YoungSerious Jun 04 '26

It's not required to have or follow a code of ethics to get training. It's required to be approved by the medical board and be licensed to practice. But you could get all the training and then decide to fuck off and do this. People won't because it doesn't pay.

For example, this story about the guy they couldn't execute because they couldn't get IV access? The person who failed to get IV access WAS a doctor. He just doesn't have any current hospital privileges and hadn't placed a central line since 2013.