Lawrence Nelson and Brandon Ashby ("Rethinking the Ethics of Physician Participation in Lethal Injection Executions," May-June 2011) correctly insist that physician participation in executions merits discussion on its own terms, separate from capital punishment itself, but their ensuing argument is flawed and pernicious.They would entrust the integrity and ethics of the medical profession to the "considered judgment" of the legislature. "If the ethical arguments against physician participation are as obviously irrefutable as many proponents hold, then conscientious legislators ought to concur." Ethicists since Aristotle have raised doubts about the judgment of legislators, so it is even more remarkable that Nelson and Ashby were writing from California, which the Supreme Court castigated last year for three decades of political stalemate regarding prison reform (Brown v. Plata).
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