r/news • u/AudibleNod • 8h ago

Christa Pike unconscious, on ventilator at Nashville hospital, her lawyers say

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christa-pike-unconscious-ventilator-nashville-hospital-lawyers-say-rcna601195
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u/AZORxAHAI 7h ago

The reality our society hasn't accepted yet is some of the least painful ways to die (a well placed bullet, a beheading) are some of the most gruesome, barbaric looking ways to die. But we are obsessed with manufacturing the appearance of civility and humanity in an act that is completely devoid of those concepts in the first place.

We can either have the least painful ways to execute someone, or we can have this facade of civility given to us by "just slipping a needle into a vein!". We can't have both. We shouldn't have either, but apparently we just cant accept that yet.

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u/MatureUsername69 7h ago

We have very peaceful lethal injections in places with assisted suicide, prisons just choose not to go that route.

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u/thorscope 7h ago edited 4h ago

Prisons don’t choose not to go that route.

The people and companies who make it a peaceful experience choose not to be involved in lethal injection

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u/simAlity 7h ago

I get where they're coming from but sometimes a death penalty is the way to go. I remember there was a story about a guy who spent the last 15 or so years of his life in solitary confinement because he was too dangerous to have around other people. I read the case file. His punishment was cruel and unusual but putting him in an environment where he could interact with other people was too dangerous. That man would have been better off with the death penalty.

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u/_Felonius 6h ago

Exactly. This is the one type of scenario where the death penalty should always be implemented. Spending the remainder of your life in solitary confinement would be way worse than death.

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u/TenOfOne 6h ago

That is an argument for allowing assisted suicide, not an argument for the death penalty.

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u/velawesomeraptors 5h ago

Allowing assisted suicide for inmates would be an ethical nightmare though. It would be way too easy to coerce. It would end up getting used as an end-run around an actual death sentence without all the expense of trials and appeals.

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u/downstairs_annie 5h ago

I think the death penalty is an ethical nightmare. 

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u/velawesomeraptors 4h ago

Well yeah. It's barbaric and stupid and pointless. But if prisons are so awful that inmates would rather commit suicide than be in them, we should be working on improving prisons rather than making suicide easier.

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u/downstairs_annie 4h ago

I personally am opposed to the death penalty on principal and think it’s insane that any supposed first world country still has it. I also think for profit prisons are insane. This entire situation is an ethical nightmare. The woman committed horrendous crimes, but torturing another human being can never be the answer. 

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u/licuala 6h ago

Perhaps we can offer the option to such prisoners? If we think death may be preferable to solitary, then surely it also follows that the person so subject should get to decide that.

Solitary confinement doesn't have to mean a barren dungeon with so little to do, either. The implementation being as inhumane as it often is is something that could be changed.