By Rob Stein
Washington Post
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A national physicians organization has decided to revoke the certification of any member who participates in executing a prisoner by lethal injection.
The mandate from the American Board of Anesthesiologists reflects its leaders’ belief that “we are healers, not executioners,” board secretary Mark Rockoff said. Although the American Medical Association has long opposed doctor involvement, the anesthesiologists’ group is the first to say it will harshly penalize a health care worker for abetting lethal injections.
About half of the 35 states performing executions, including Virginia and North Carolina, require a doctor to be present at all executions. Other states have also recruited doctors, including anesthesiologists, to play a role in executions involving lethal injections. In some jurisdictions, anesthesiologists consult prison officials on dosages. In others, they insert catheters and infuse the three-drug cocktails.
Under the policy, which the group’s 40,000 members learned about in February, any of these activities could lead to a loss of certification. Anesthesiologists can get state medical licenses without certification, but most hospitals require it.
While death penalty opponents welcome the move because it raises yet more questions about lethal injections, capital punishment supporters contend that doctors are not needed during the procedures, which can be administered by prison employees. But as questions mount about the types and combinations of drugs used and whether they cause undue suffering, states have been turning to doctors for advice and assistance. With 3,200 prisoners now on death rows across the country, most of the 50 executions performed each year since 2008 have used lethal injections.
“If I were lying there on the gurney and someone was administering a paralyzing drug ... I would want someone there who knew what they were doing,” said Ty Alper, associate director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Law. “Just like if I was getting surgery - I wouldn’t want a prison guard administering the anesthesia.”
Thus far, no doctors have been disciplined, Rockoff said, but several anesthesiologists, including some who have worked as execution consultants or testified in capital punishment litigation, said the step has had a chilling effect.
“They are clearly drawing a line in the sand and saying, ‘If you cross this, we’ll come after you,’ ” said Bryan Liang, a law professor at California Western School of Law and a professor of anesthesiology at the University of California at San Diego.
“It sure will deter me. For the ABA to threaten to pull your board certification is a big deal,” said one anesthesiologist who has consulted for prison officials in his state about drug dosages. Arguing that the decision should be left up to individual doctors’ consciences, none of those who criticized the policy agreed to be named, saying they feared repercussions.
Executions were halted in the United States from 2007 until 2008 until the Supreme Court decided in a Kentucky case that a commonly used three-drug cocktail did not violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Now Ohio and Washington state have started using one anesthetic, similar to animal euthanasia.
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