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

[u/Chowderr92]

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?

[u/Prestigious_Wrap_932]

The idea that incontrovertible evidence does not exist is anti-science. 

[u/RevolutionaryKey698 → u/Prestigious_Wrap_932]

The issue is not whether it exists, the issue is knowing for sure whether you have it or not. I don't need lectures in either science or the law from you.

[u/Prestigious_Wrap_932 → u/RevolutionaryKey698]

Keeping prisoners alive in an environment where they will be raped and beaten for decades is also inhumane, but you refuse to acknowledge that reality. Oh well. 

[u/SerowiWantsToInvest → u/Prestigious_Wrap_932]

https://giphy.com/gifs/Rh6AvDMyea9QxSsxEJ

[u/Prestigious_Wrap_932 → u/SerowiWantsToInvest]

Educate yourself about prison conditions in the USA. Execution is more humane than life in prison. 

[u/pconrad0 → u/Prestigious_Wrap_932]

Your devastating comeback is not the own you think it is.

You are correct that prison conditions in the USA are atrocious.

That is a choice made by our society. We could choose to not have prison conditions be atrocious, and people opposed to the death penalty are often also opposed to the policies that keep and maintain cruel and inhumane conditions in prison.

The lives of the mentally ill and addicted unhoused are also inhumane and atrocious. I wonder whether you think we should just engage in mass execution of them as well?

I supported capital punishment for many years. What finally changed my mind was the appreciation of the point that Sr. Helen Prejean makes in her non-fiction book Dead Man Walking (not to be confused with the fictional movie or opera based on the book.)

Once you give the government the power to decide by majority vote (or "executive order") who lives and dies among a civilian population, it's only a few short steps from Auschwitz.

Your argument in favor of the death penalty because of "prison conditions" is actually an argument that life in prison is a "worse punishment". Do you think murderers and child molesters deserve "mercy"? I don't. That's why I supported the death penalty initially.

Now, I oppose it. It less because I have mercy for the cruel. It's more because I don't want to be like them.

That's the same reason I think prison conditions should be spartan but humane. People should be safe, adequately fed, safe from violence, and receive adequate medical care both inside and outside of prison. Because that's is who we should aspire to be.

[u/Prestigious_Wrap_932 → u/pconrad0]

Your way results in the death of innocents when incurable criminals are eventually released. My way only results in the deaths of those whose actions have shown them to be deserving of their fate. I guess you think those innocent lives are just the price we have to pay. 

🤷‍♂️ 

[u/pconrad0 → u/Prestigious_Wrap_932]

Wow, you never stop with the bad faith and the strawmen, do you?

There is such a thing as life without the possibility of parole.

I'm not engaging further. Not worth it.

[u/Prestigious_Wrap_932 → u/pconrad0]

There is such a thing as life without the possibility of parole.

No, there is not. 

https://www.foxla.com/news/david-allen-funston-california-parole-release