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Ethics is the basis for intelligence on a spiritual level. If one sees an issue and assumes no moral responsibility, either he is naïve, like Linda Pastan in her poem called Ethics, or he has no moral compass. I define moral compass as: one’s inner conscience telling them the difference between right and wrong.
A person’s moral compass is often clear because many decisions we make on a daily basis are clear cut; for instance: Last night, a guy behind me on line for cheese steaks, was talking on the cell phone about inappropriate topics and being too loud about it in front of children and everybody else in line. I had options: I could have hit him in the face, in which case he’d stop saying inappropriate things in front of children and I may get a moment satisfaction that I hit a jerk, but he also might have hit back, he could have shot me, etc. The point is, in most cases, when and where it can easily be avoided, violence is not an option.
The shades of gray enter the equation when we talk about things more complicated than a daily issue and it is here that both sides seem to have the intelligent and logical moral decision, even though both sides can be proven wrong. Our moral compasses become tricky when it comes to the issues that have good points on both sides, because the intelligent answer is not as blatant and/or obvious as it is with, “Should I hit this asshole or not?”
In her poem on Ethics, Pastan even puts it to us that sometimes, only our experiences can guide us towards a strong feeling either way, on issues that do not normally apply to us.
In my last paper, I got comfortable being able to say things that I normally keep inside due to their personal nature and I hope to be able to do the same with this paper. It is in this respect that I give the example of abortion.
If you asked me back in high school what I thought on this topic, I’d tell you I find it horrifying to think about killing a child, especially one that is my own. I know that there are those out there who argue that a child isn’t actually living until 8-10 weeks (when it starts to look like a human being and not like a salamander), when their heart is beating, when they develop a body shape, or whatever but when you’ve gotten that little pee stick that tells you that you’ve created a living thing. When this happens, it doesn’t matter if it’s living or not, you get a feeling in your heart that cannot be described in words. Also, it’s not only in your heart; it resonates through your body like the eulogy of a mother or father. I haven’t lost my parents yet but I have lost a grandfather who I was very close with and the fact that I never got to say goodbye was the same guttural feeling I got as when I killed my potential child.
It’s very easy to say a good writer is supposed to be able to argue both sides but when you’ve had a feeling like that and have went through it anyway, it becomes incredibly difficult to be able to say truthfully, you find people who go through with abortions, are abhorrent.
When I was at the clinic, I didn’t want to have my girlfriend abort the baby. In all honesty, I wanted her to keep it, but she told me that it was not the time for it and that it would ruin our lives and that was the end. I didn’t need reassurance of this at any point because my job was to be there for her, to hold her hand and tell her she was making the right decision; to stand by her and her initial feelings so that she wouldn’t be conflicted, confused or be caused any more stress than she had to be. I did it without batting an eyelash because that’s what a good person does.
Morally, was it the right decision? Maybe, maybe not, but it was a hard one to make and one that would cause us both to face a lot of emotions and physical feelings. That’s why I can never agree with a person who stands outside one of those clinics with pictures of dead babies and angry looks on their faces putting a political spin on a very personal decision. Even someone who thinks they have the right to say anything about a woman’s right to choose at home, is in my opinion, unqualified for the life of community.
So as you can see, choosing a moral issue to argue the opposite on is a difficult process. It may seem unnecessary that I write two pages on my decision process but I feel it is necessary for the emphasis that to argue the opposite side makes for a lesser perspective than one that I have experienced.
In lieu of the fact, that I can’t argue abortion, I have chosen to argue capital punishment. Many believe that capital punishment is immoral and wrong. I am not one of these people but I will seek to explain why they feel this way and argue for the immorality of capital punishment.
The systems in place in the United States today to put prisoners to death are lethal injection, electrocution, the gas chamber, firing squad, and hanging. Some of the immorality in these methods is obvious but some are more humane than others.
First up on the list is lethal injection. Lethal injection is a relatively new method of execution. Gaining popularity as recently as the 20th century, lethal injection was brought about as an alternative to electrocution, hanging, a firing squad, the gas chamber and beheading a subject. Lethal injection is the number one form of capital punishment in the United States today being utilized in 36 states, excluding being the preferred execution method of our federal government.
In the process of lethal injection, 3 drugs are utilized to kill a condemned prisoner. The first of these drugs is Sodium thiopental. Sodium thiopental is, according to wikipedia, “an ultra-short action barbiturate.” It acts as an anesthetic to render a prisoner unconscious within minutes. This is given to make sure that the condemned doesn’t feel pain as he dies. The typical doses of this drug are 2-5 grams which is about 3 times the dose that medical professionals use in assisted suicide. This drug was primarily used for inducing comas which according to research can mean that the body is inactive while certain parts of the brain are still operational. If a person was in a coma but still had an active part of his brain during this procedure, he would suffer silently while parts of his body shut down. In its self, thiopental can cause respiratory depression and vascular collapse. Unlike the next drug in the cycle, it is not considered to be non-depolarizing so with such a high dose in the body, it is possible that the brain does not shut down but simply loses consciousness and the body collapses before any of the other drugs can be administered. The purpose of using such a high dose is to make sure the person is out but suppose the displacement into the body happens quicker in an active substance abuser and the body breaks down while they are still conscious enough to feel it but not enough to cry out in pain. Many who are opposed to this procedure site just that and research showed on certain patients of one correctional facility that the amount of this drug in an inmates system, during the execution was less than the amount that is used in an open heart surgery.
The second ingredient in the cocktail is a drug called Pancuronium. According to my research, this chemical is non-depolarizing which means that it does not cause changes in a cells membrane potential and/or it does not have the possibility of affecting the electrical impulses passed between cells in the body. What it does do is relax the muscles, causing “complete fast and sustained paralysis of the skeletal striated muscles, including the diaphragm and the rest of the respiratory muscles.” The problem with this chemical is, if the person is not knocked out from the barbiturate, Sodium thiopental, and many prisoners who have been on lots of different drugs including small to large doses of barbiturates for recreational use, this person will suffer death from asphyxiation in 15-30 seconds and it would be an extremely terrifying way to die.
If they make it through the dose of Pancuronium, without dying of asphyxiation, they have to suffer the third drug in the cocktail, potassium chloride. The third drug in the cocktail, potassium chloride, stops the heart muscle and causes death by cardiac arrest. People in the medical community know this death as hyperkalemia or an excess of potassium. It causes cardiac arrest and can kill prisoners affectively in minutes especially with the amount given but in the folly of this system, as researchers have found, it is possible that not enough of this drug takes effect and the person’s heart slows down while he is paralyzed and he simply cannot scream out in pain, although he is feeling it.
The three drugs mixed outside the body can cause precipitation or “formation of a solid in a solution during a chemical reaction.” If a person’s circulatory system does not move quick enough, and these drugs especially the very first one can slow the circulation of the body, then is there not the possibility that precipitation could occur inside the body causing solids and a painful build up inside the prisoner himself. This would definitely fall within the realm of cruel and unusual punishment.
Also the drugs are monitored by prison guard officials as opposed to health care professionals. The risk of mistakes and errors while administering a carefully scientific treatment is greatly increased. For instance, any one of these three being placed in the wrong order or too much or too little of the drugs or the wrong drugs being put in the system can result in an incredibly painful way to die. If a person is not completely under because thiopental is a short acting barbiturate then he may be paralyzed but still in a great amount of pain even though he can’t tell us that.
Resistance to the drugs is a factor, as well as the screw-ups that can occur in the order these drugs are given or the amounts that they are given. Research conducted by the university of Miami suggested that in certain cases the amount of thiopental in a prisoners system at the time of death was less than the amount used in a common surgery. They were awake to feel their lungs stop responding as they suffocated alive.
The second form of capital punishment is electrocution. Electrocution, also known as the electric chair or simply “the chair,” is utilized in 6 of the United States today with Oklahoma and Illinois keeping it as an option, should lethal injection be judged unconstitutional. This method of execution is utilized only in the United States; though it was used briefly in the Philippines in 1924 and 1976. As recently as 2008, the Nebraska Supreme court found the electric chair to be “cruel and unusual punishment” and removed it as a method of execution in Nebraska altogether. Currently it’s only used as a secondary method of execution because Nebraska was the last state to be using it as the primary method of execution.
Like lethal injection, the electric chair works in stages. Varying levels of electricity are sent through the condemned’s body until that person is dead.
The first wave of electricity is supposed to cause unconsciousness and brain death, the second was supposed to cause damage to the vital organs and an over stimulation of the heart, resulting in death.
Being that the electric chair is an elective procedure today, or one that a prisoner has to request rather than is subjected to without the choice between that and lethal injection, there are few dissentions to this procedure. The risks to this procedure are obvious because of the extreme cases that have been observed when it has been utilized. In Florida, there was a case where flames shot forth from the head of a prisoner named Pedro Medina and that was 1997. In 1999 Allen Lee Davis, convicted of murder was executed via the electric chair and his face was bruised and bloodied so much so that the pictures made their way to the internet and Florida’s primary execution method was changed to lethal injection, permanently, as of 2008.
Next up on the list is the gas chamber. The gas chamber is currently used in 3 states as a secondary execution method.
The Gas chamber uses one of 3 gases. These are hydrogen cyanide, carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide. Through a process of dipping potassium cyanide into a concentrated batch of sulfuric acid, HCN or hydrogen cyanide is created and the prisoner most commonly undergoes convulsions and/or excessive drooling before he finally dies. The last person to be executed by means of the gas chamber was in 1999.
As it is a secondary execution method, there are, once again, few dissentions. We know it to be cruel and unusual punishment because in 1994 a federal judge declared the gas chamber, “cruel and unusual punishment,” even though it’s used as a secondary method only by choice of the condemned today.
The last two methods of execution are firing squad and hanging.
Hanging is currently a secondary option in Washington and New Hampshire. All other states have discontinued the practice as archaic or outdated. The problems with hanging are immense and the risk of losing the head in the long drop is only the least of the problems with the execution method. The most notable problem with this method is that if the neck does not break and the head stays on, it can take a person a while to die of asphyxiation due to hanging. As has been noted previously in this paper though, secondary methods of execution like hanging are on their way out and have been for some time. The best read from a death penalty abolitionist on the topic was written by a man named Clinton Duffy who served as warden of San Quinton prison between 1940 and 1952. His memoir is entitled Eighty Eight Men and Two Women.
The firing squad option is utilized today in only Oklahoma and Utah. It was found to be cruel and unusual because when firing squads were prevalent in every state, the practice was supposed to be that one man on the squad had a blank so that each man on the firing squad had the peace of mind that his bullet might not have been one used to kill but on January 17, 1977 a prisoner at Utah state prison named Gary Gilmore was sentenced to die in front of a firing squad and his brother found that all five bullets were live through examining his brother’s shirt. The result was that most states banned the practice. As of today, 3 remaining inmates have the choice of death by firing squad and after they make their choices, it is likely this method of execution will be phased out of existence for all time. Only as a back up, will it be practiced again, and it will be kept as a back up only for times of war.
So as you can see, most methods of execution are already being phased out with the main methods of execution still around, dwindling. Lethal injection holds a strong place in execution methods and is still all to prevalent today but Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have no death penalty statute. As the masses begin to say that to kill a prisoner is wrong because America sucks at performing it, are they right?
