The death penalty in the US
Now that some US states are using, or may use, nitrogen gas for
executions, there is a campaign to block that method by restricting
what the
buyers of medical nitrogen
can use it for.
As one who opposes the death penalty
on principle,
regardless of the method used, I am always puzzled by the fuss that people make about those
details. I'm especially puzzled by the question of whether the person being executed feels
pain during the process. Does it presume that temporary pain is worse than death?
Imagine that you are in Gaza and you are wounded. You may be lucky enough to find a surgeon
but there will be no anesthetic available. Would you say, "Please don't operate, just kill
me"? You might, I might — but if you have the fortitude to handle days of pain after surgery,
you'd say, "Operate! I will suffer so I can live."
So I don't see how a painless method of execution can make execution legitimate.
Meanwhile, it is dangerous and unjust to allow the sellers of products
any
say
in how purchasers use them. That power is very broad and lends itself to injustice.
Few of the purchasers of any product want to use it for executions. What if you buy something
so as to use it for something innocent, such as copying DVDs or Blu-ray disks? Should the
seller be allowed to forbid you to use it that way? We must not allow companies to have such
power over their customers! We must defeat any law that would give a company that kind of
power.
What, then, about using nitrogen for execution? If we are opposed to the death penalty, and we
have the political support to put a stop to it, we should refuse to get distracted by the side
issue of giving producers of nitrogen the power to control what purchasers will do with it,
refuse to get distracted from this by the idea of blocking some
methods of execution (but not all) in this way.
Instead we should use that political support to prohibit the death
penalty. We could insist that purchasers of nitrogen be free to
use it for any lawful activity, which would no longer include executions.