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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:
Cornettoninja · 30/04/2014 20:21

lovesardine, picking up on your digression I was musing the other day on whether the USA would meet the criteria to join the EU.

I'm not overly knowledgeable but looking at their healthcare, some States stances on homosexuality (very similar to Russia and the shit they got over the Winter Olympics), employment laws and death sentences - the fact they're held as a beacon of western civilisation and all that everyone else could/should aspire to be like starts to look incredibly fragile and thin.

LoveSardines · 30/04/2014 20:36

No I think you're right cornetto and I think it is hard for us to remember that the US is not like western europe at all really, just with the govt banging on about "special relationships" and them always holding themselves up as the be all and end all of modern society it can be hard to remember sometimes.

Of course what happens varies enormously between states as well which is hard to remember, death penalty, approach to abortion homosexuality etc they may as well be different countries.

SuburbanRhonda · 30/04/2014 21:03

mrsmaturin, if you read "Injustice: Life and Death in the Courtrooms of America" by Clive Stafford Smith, it will disabuse you forever of the notion that the US has a legal process that is open to scrutiny.

SuburbanRhonda · 30/04/2014 21:06

It's also worth noting that countries that execute large numbers of their citizens, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan use the fact that the US has the death penalty as justification for their own use of it, on the grounds that the US is a civilised country Hmm

TalkinPeace · 30/04/2014 21:15

I asked my vet the same question when she was killing my cat.

THE injection they give pets puts them into such a deep comfortable sleep that their hearts stop.

Note the word "comfortable"

That was blocked by the "eye for an eye" apologists for judicial murder

so the execution drug regime makes as sure as it can that the prisoner does not slide comfortably to death.

dolphinsandwhales · 30/04/2014 21:18

I feel sick to the stomach by what that 'poor American' did to his victim, in short, shot her, raped her and buriedher alive.

I'd prefer if his death had been swifter, but I don't care that it was a difficult one. Did no one start a thread about the victim and how her horrendous torture and murder should have been avoided? Thought not, seems a lot of people are more bothered about the 'human rights' of a murderer. He lost his 'human rights' when he committed his heinous crime as far as I'm concerned.

SuburbanRhonda · 30/04/2014 21:28

You're completely missing the point, dolphin.

You should read this whole thread and the other similar one to see that people who are against the death penalty are also horrified and repulsed by this murder. They are not mutually exclusive.

And exactly what would be achieved by starting an "if only" thread about that poor murdered young woman?

No-one, least of all you, is in any position to say when someone loses their right to life. Thank goodness.

Cornettoninja · 30/04/2014 21:31

But even removing someone's human rights as part of a punishment doesn't actually make them any less human does it?

Is it dehumanising those involved in process if we have no regard for the ease and swiftness of the method of execution?

I agree with the poster earlier who said that the guilottene is probably one of the easier ways to quickly kill someone, but there are clearly issues with getting people to perform such executions if it's not an option. Someone has to carry out what's necessary to make an execution happen and their welfare also needs to be taken into consideration, being the, or part of the reason that another person has had an un-necessarily painful and prolonged death isn't always going to be cushioned by the facts of what led them there.

It's easy to say the guy on death row deserves no better, but what about the people who have to actually take part and witness it? The kind of people who would be completely unfazed are probably not the kind of people who should be in the uniform in a prison.

That, imho is one of the problems with the death penalty. It asks far too much from innocent people.

SylvaniansKeepGettingHoovered · 30/04/2014 21:35

The point is that the life of a 19 yr old ended in absolute pain and terror....her family brokenhearted, horrified...why would anyone start a thread sympathising with the 'poor American' who did that to her?

SuburbanRhonda · 30/04/2014 21:38

Agree, cornetto.

In the documentary "14 days in May", the effect on the prison guards of having to take part in the execution of an innocent man is extremely upsetting to watch.

SuburbanRhonda · 30/04/2014 21:40

Perhaps because as I and many others have said on this thread and the other similar one, that it is possible to feel horror and sadness at both.

Fizzybangfanny · 30/04/2014 21:43

I have no sympathy for him - at all and none for the next man that raped and murdered an 11 month old.

SuburbanRhonda · 30/04/2014 21:50

You're entitled to feel what you like fizzy. I just don't get why you want to have a say in how other people feel Confused

Owllady · 30/04/2014 21:53

I have fiends with horses and euthanasia isn't as straightforward as with smaller animals and some horses do have to be shot if medical euthanasia doesn't work
I'd farm animals are shot if ill too :(

But I do agree with you reallytired, he is a human being and as fellow human beings his death should be as humane and straightforward as possible and not symbolic (despite what he has done as its a separate issue)

Thurlow · 30/04/2014 21:59

Do those people who agree with the death penalty believe that it happens in some sort of isolation? That the person who is being executed doesn't have family and friends? That there are not people involved in the execution who may find themselves deeply traumatised by witnessing something they perhaps believed they agreed with?

A family or families will have been ripped apart by a terrible crime.

Why does inflicting the same pain on another family make things better?

Even if you agree with the death penalty in theory, what do you think about the mothers, fathers, wives, children who have to spend years of their life knowing that their son or husband is going to be executed?

Original poster
ReallyTired · 30/04/2014 22:00

SylvaniansKeepGettingHoovered

I started the thread. Do feel sympathy for the 19 year old who life was ended so brutally. However I would not wish the suffering that her killer went through in his last hours on anyone.

Torturing a murderer does not bring back the dead or rewind the clock. The US has a higher murder rate than the UK, which prehaps shows how ineffectual the death penalty is as a deterrent. The complex appeals system the US has means that there is no financial saving with the death penalty.

Being guilty of a horrendous crime is not a reason to torture someone. No one should end their life in pain and terror. (Even if they ended someone's else's life in a horrible way.) The eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth approach to justice belongs in the dark ages.

If you really want to punish a sadistic murderer then treat them like Myra Hindley or Ian Bradey or Harold Shipman. For them life imprisonment was so awful that they felt that death was preferable.

OP posts:
FreudiansSlipper · 30/04/2014 22:09

YANBU

it is horrific not matter what he has done

ScrambledEggAndToast · 30/04/2014 22:12

I know I am missing the point of the thread but frankly I have no sympathy. If he hadn't killed that poor girl in such a brutal fashion then he wouldn't have had to experience that (I admit) botched execution. He only has himself to blame and I personally hope that he felt some of the terror that she felt.

IsChippyMintonExDirectory · 30/04/2014 22:13

I don't agree with the death penalty but have no sympathy for this guy after what he did. And by the sounds of it the drug company wasn't at fault. 'Poor guy' my bum. Also I don't think there is a humane way of ending any creatures life.

SuburbanRhonda · 30/04/2014 22:15

I expect he did feel terror, so I hope you find that thought comforting, scrambledegg.

IsChippyMintonExDirectory · 30/04/2014 22:20

I find it so bizarre that people don't understand why others hate murderers and have no sympathy towards them when they are punished under a system they are aware of. Yes he didn't expect the execution to botch but I just can't muster sympathy for someone who did what he did. Is that so bad? Only on MN are people so uber-PC (sorry feeling hate the te PC but only way I can describe it)

IsChippyMintonExDirectory · 30/04/2014 22:21

*fecking hate the term

Stupid fat fingers!

SuburbanRhonda · 30/04/2014 22:36

I don't think anyone on this thread has said they don't understand hatred towards murderers, chippy, have they?

Actually on the other, similar thread, many of us have said that if it were our loved one who had been murdered, we would feel no sympathy towards the murderer either, and would completely understand and see as normal feelings of wanting revenge, etc.

But as has been exhaustively pointed out on both threads, it is possible to feel horror at both a murder and a botched execution. Or any execution, in my case.

Original poster
ReallyTired · 30/04/2014 22:36

I hate what the person has done. I am not sure that I hate somone that I have never met on a personal level. Do I really hate someone enough that I want them to be tortured to death?

Its one thing for someone to be sentenced to death, but totally another for them to experience a botched execution. I am sure that those who were in the room with the condemed man were deeply affected by the execution going wrong. Unless you are some kind of pychopath, it is horrendous to watch a fellow human being suffer pain and a protracted death.

"Only on MN are people so uber-PC (sorry feeling hate the te PC but only way I can describe it)"

Its not uber PC, but basic christian teaching which was around 2000 years ago. These uber PC people have brought an end to the death penalty across the whole of the EU.

OP posts:
SuburbanRhonda · 30/04/2014 22:40

My feelings against the death penalty have nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity, OP.

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