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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to not understand why it is so difficult to kill a human being humanely

184 replies

ReallyTired · 30/04/2014 13:34

Animals are put to sleep or slaughtered for food every day. They do not suffer like this poor American did. People go under general anesthetic every day for major operations without mishap. Surely an excecution is easier to carry out than complex heart surgery.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27220406

I don't want to discuss the pro and cons of captical punishment, but surely if the state is going to kill someone it can be done quickly and simply. Why is killing a person more complicated than killing a cow or a pig? I see no excuse for botched executions.

OP posts:
pebblyshit · 30/04/2014 16:35

Why can't they just administer a huge dose of anaesthetic so at least the person is asleep - or is that what happens anyway?

It's to do with the supply of the drugs. Take a look at the article I linked down thread.

Joysmum · 30/04/2014 16:37

I've seen a number of animals be put to sleep by injection and not be the nice peaceful end I'd wanted for them.

Ledkr · 30/04/2014 16:38

I don't agree with the death penalty, never have but I also don't feel very much sympathy or shock about this after reading about his crimes.
He wasnt bothered about her dignified painless death was he?

Fleta · 30/04/2014 16:40

It makes me feel sick.

I have sympathy for him because it is utterly and completely barbaric. That doesn't make what he has done any less awful, but I don't have a finite level of sympathy.

There was another botched electrocution. It gave me nightmares for weeks.

There will never be anything to convince me that any person/body/whatever has the right to make the decision to end a life.

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 30/04/2014 16:41

Joysmum - in what way, if it's not too upsetting?

Loverdose · 30/04/2014 16:43

"poor American" my arse. I believe that if you kill a human being in the manner that this man did then you don't deserve human rights. I realise that this is an unpopular opinion, but it's just how I feel.

I agree this was a botch job and there are better ways of doing it. I don't believe people should be allowed to watch. But do I feel sorry for him? To be honest, no I don't.

Fleta · 30/04/2014 16:45

For me Loverdose, that is what makes us better for want of a better word. The fact that we do allow people human rights, whatever they have done.

Thurlow · 30/04/2014 16:48

Well said, fleta. If we decide that someone else doesn't deserve to live, we're just sinking to their level.

Loverdose · 30/04/2014 16:48

I understand that people feel that way. But if someone did what he did to my dd, I really wouldn't care about being the better person.

gordyslovesheep · 30/04/2014 16:51

you don't know that Lover - you can't possibly know how you would feel

lots of victims families speak up against execution and stiff sentencing

Lots of people are opposed to state sanctioned murder despite their experiences - or even because of them

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 30/04/2014 16:52

One of the first things we teach our kids is 'two wrongs don't make a right.'

I just can't get my head round killing someone at all. Fleta is right imo, it makes us better.

If our kids hit us, we don't hit them back to put it very simply, as that is lowering our standards to theirs.

LEMmingaround · 30/04/2014 16:58

Well, one of the men in that article raped an 11 month old girl, i think he gave up his rights to be treated humanely right there and then. As much as it makes me uncomfortable, i am not going to lose any sleep over it.

Thurlow · 30/04/2014 17:00

Every country and every society has different beliefs on what is right and what people do that sees them give up their 'rights'. Pakistan recently stoned a couple to death for adultery.

gordyslovesheep · 30/04/2014 17:00

do people still not understand that treating people humanly and respecting their rights is as much about the greater good for society and humanity as it is about the criminal

you are on very slippy ground when you start deciding who does and doesn't have the right to be treated equally

LEMmingaround · 30/04/2014 17:01

Dame, i used to be a vet nurse and i would say that 99% of all euthanasia is peaceful. We had a few incidents where the animal reacted badly and vocally, however what level of awareness they had i couldn't tell you and it was over quickly.

Loverdose · 30/04/2014 17:07

I just don't think keeping rapists and murderers alive does society any good. If the world we live in is so civilized, then nobody would ever kill. Unfortunately they do, and the world we live in is not civil. :(

MiniTheMinx · 30/04/2014 17:09

I'm struggling with the idea of killing and humanely being used in the same context. Is killing a humane human activity? I guess we kill other animals for food, and it could be argued that the motivation for this and the method of killing do not actually make killing in anyway more humane. But for me it does come down to method necessarily but to motivation.

In the case of a "psychotic" murderer, judged to be incapable of reform and therefore likely incurably a danger to others, it's implied by this that this human has a condition for which there is no cure. If we accept the bio-medical narrative of "psychopathy" and medicate this with murder/killing then we should conclude that other incurable medical conditions be treated in the same way.

It is a double standard to deny a "humane" cure for incurable conditions to innocent people whilst we accept the dichotomous nonsense that execution equals punishment. The only way execution can be punishment is for it to be inhumane. The motivation to punish is different to the motivation to cure, so the issue isn't whether he was killed humanely but how to justify killing anyone, and whether that is ever humane.

Fleta · 30/04/2014 17:11

No the world we live in isn't civil. But I think by setting up people as arbiters of who lives and who dies. Or indeed as it is in America, a zip code lottery, then we make it a damn sight less civil

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 30/04/2014 17:12

LEM - thanks, that has been my experience too.

Thurlow · 30/04/2014 17:38

Lover - isn't that all the more reason to try and sets some standards? How can a society try to civilise itself while still setting the example that murder is ok?

TequilaMockingbirdy · 30/04/2014 17:42

Ha. Not sorry he suffered at all. Divine retribution. If I was religious that is.

neverthebride · 30/04/2014 17:42

Imagine it was your child who did something awful and the state killed them.

Your children wouldn't do that? What if they were mentally ill? Have LD? On drugs?. Your children still wouldn't do that? Because you've raised them better? Because you loved them, didn't abuse them, gave them opportunities and support?. People doing terrible things usually didn't have all that. It doesn't make it right and it's not an excuse but it is part of a formulation.

There are no rich people on death row because they can afford decent legal representation. Everyone is either poor, a minority, have LD, mental illness or a horrific childhood. Many come under more than one and often several categories.

There is a man called Andre Thomas in Texas who murdered his family while psychotic but still sentenced to death. In 2 separate incidents years apart on death row he removed both his eyes with his bare hands. On the second occasion he ate his eyeball. Only then was this acutely unwell man who is now blind transferred to a psychiatric hospital. He maintains death row status and awaits an execution date.

Guess he deserves all he gets though eh?. For Gods sake this is happening in AMERICA not some disadvantaged and ungoverned corner of the world.

Rainbunny · 30/04/2014 17:53

There's a number of reasons. It's partly because the drugs that were being used were only manufactured in Europe and not originally for the purpose of executions. Under EU law this use is banned so the companies stopped supplying the American states with the drugs.

Instead the authorities have been experimenting with substitutions, these are highly criticised by the medical community. The problem is that Doctors cannot be involved in use of drugs to execute someone, the American Medical Association prohibits this as against the code of ethics "first do no harm" so any medical professional would be open to legal liability. The people actually combining these experimental execution drugs and administering them are untrained prison employees.
In states that allow it, some prisoners are now opting for a firing squad execution, apparently this is actually very quick and relatively painless compared to hanging/lethal injection/electric chair.
Pretty grim!

saintmerryweather · 30/04/2014 17:54

Its not as if every death row inmate is going to be killed like this ..they didnt do it on purpose. Having read what he did though he deserved everything he got and I have no sympathy. Doesnt mean I want it to happen as a normal occurance I just cant bring myself to care how he died

BMW6 · 30/04/2014 17:57

I would imagine that the Guillotine would be a quick and painless way to die.

Given the options, that's the one I'd go for if I had commited a crime in a country that had the death sentance for that crime.