Saving lives is unethical?

[fireheart17]

- get more twenty-somethings to affix that "Donor" applique to their driver's licenses, or state clearly in their will that the body would be donated. Approached correctly, this would reap far greater dividends than what you could get from Death Row inmates.

Wait, you guys have to put a sticker on yours?!

When we get our "adult" license, one of the things we can do on the form is tick if we wish to donate our organs or not. It's printed on the drivers licence.

But those are forms of "Cruel and Unusual" punishment. Firing squads, hangings, electrocution, and even the gas chamber have been deemed too cruel and painful for the condemned and thus its constitutionality has been questioned.

They are looking into an option of using something with nitrogen as an option for the gas chamber instead of hydrogen cyanide (the current option). I can understand the gas chamber (reading about it on Wiki just made me go ), electroceution and hanging, but how is a firing squad "cruel and unusual?" I was under the impression that shots were fired to a point where instant death would occur.

No one has a functioning gas chamber anymore; they are dangerous to those around them and hard to maintain.

I do believe it's still a secondary option, but not used for this reason.

In case anyone's wondering about the dangers and the maintenance requirements, I'll try and sum it up as follows:

-The gas chambers are required to be sealed super-tight.
-Prior to the execution, pellets of one of the chemicals that create the gas are placed in a small chamber underneath the prisoner BEFORE they are taken in.
-Once the prisoner is brought in and strapped down, there's a tube that runs alongside the gas chamber which leads to a small tank underneath the pellets. The other chemical that is part of the "gas" mixture is poured into this tube.
-Once the prisoner has said their final words, blah blah de blah, there's a switch that is thrown that drops the liquid into the pellets, creating hydrogen cyanide.
-Once the prisoner is dead, the chamber is flooded with a neutralising agent before the prisoner can be removed, the guards need to wear oxygen masks and the chamber has to be scrubbed down by people in hazmat suits with the SAME neutralising agent.

-Both the agent in question and the byproduct of the cyanide gas are very dangerous to use.

This video might explain a little more. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R18yDjc2lKE
(NSFW)

[crashhelmet]

They are looking into an option of using something with nitrogen as an option for the gas chamber instead of hydrogen cyanide (the current option). I can understand the gas chamber (reading about it on Wiki just made me go ), electroceution and hanging, but how is a firing squad "cruel and unusual?" I was under the impression that shots were fired to a point where instant death would occur.

It's considered "cruel and unusual" punishment because they're conscious and fully aware at the time of execution. It has the potential for instant death, but the condemned are not shot in the head, they're shot in the chest. As Smiley pointed out not every member of the firing squad has a live round in their rifle either. If the live round(s) miss the heart, the condemned will die slower and painfully.

The reason Lethal Injection is not considered "Cruel and unusual" is that they put the condemned to sleep first. There's no pain, no suffering.

[Mytical]

There's no pain, no suffering.

That we know of. Just because somebody or something can not express pain (for whatever reason) does not mean they are not in pain.

[HYHYBT]

A bit of a different angle on this... logically, at least, the requirements for organ donation should be at least as strict as those for donating blood. (Whether either are, in fact, logical or not is another thread entirely, and one I'm pretty sure we've already had.) And being in prison, or even jailed more than I think three days, is an automatic disqualifier. Whether that's for a period of time or permanently I don't remember offhand, but in the case of someone on death row it wouldn't make any difference.

[KitterCat]

Its not that saving lives is unethical, so much as how was that life saved. Prisoners are considered wards of a state. They are under someone elses control and could be possobly coerced into the procedure. The very people in charge of the inmates could even be place in the situation that they are required to decive the inmates to accept organ donation.

Look at China where up untill the last few years refused to even acknowledge that part of there donor program was made up of inmates. Infact a large part of their donors came from inmates, many who were political disconnects, and in some cases not even tried. They dont have organ donation option, your in automatically and cant opt out. Theoretically they are going to be stoping this practice due to international pressure this month, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Its a very slippery slope. After all we're currently talking about inmates that are only going to be killed anyway, so why not use their orgains? But where would we stop. After all if someone on death row is ok, how about someone in for life? What if they had a chance at parole, what if they didnt? How about massive debt fraud?

We need more orgain donors, but this is going to be done by better information to the general public. Not by getting it from 43 people that are executed in this country.





http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...ted-prisoners/

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...l#.Uop3y38o7MK

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/201...ces-death.html