Medical Professionals Call for End to Their Role in Executions

A failed execution in Tennessee has created a serious debate about the role of doctors and nurses in the death penalty. In May, officials attempted to execute an inmate named Tony Carruthers using lethal injection—a method where drugs are injected into the body to cause death. However, the process did not go as planned. According to KFF Health News, the medical team spent over an hour trying to find a vein to start an intravenous (IV) line. When they could not find one in his arms or feet, a doctor attempted to place a central line, which is a tube inserted into a deeper vein near the collarbone or shoulder.

Maria DeLiberato, an attorney who witnessed the event, reported that the prisoner was in clear pain, moaning and groaning while blood came from his wounds. Eventually, the governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee, ordered the prison to stop the process and granted the inmate a one-year reprieve—a delay of a punishment. This event has caused many medical professionals to speak out against their involvement in such procedures. According to NPR Health, dozens of doctors and nurses have written to the governor, arguing that healthcare workers should never be part of an execution, no matter the method used.

For many in the medical field, this is a matter of basic ethics. Dr. Robert Quinn, who signed the letter to the governor, stated that professionals who help with executions are setting aside their professional rules. The most famous of these rules is the Hippocratic Oath, which includes the instruction to "do no harm." Furthermore, the American Medical Association has established codes that explicitly forbid doctors from taking part in the death penalty. Dr. John Greer, another doctor who signed the letter, emphasized that medical workers should not participate in legally authorized executions because it goes against their purpose as healers.

This situation also raises questions about the training of those involved in executions. Legal records noted by NPR Health show that Dr. Mark Fowler, the physician who attempted the procedure on Carruthers, had not performed a central line insertion in over a decade. In a phone call, Dr. Fowler told NPR that he does not participate in the execution process itself, noting that his only role is to declare the time of death. However, the reality of the failed procedure has led to calls for a complete change in how the state handles capital punishment.

Some Republican state senators have joined the call for a moratorium—a temporary stop to an activity—on executions. They argue that the state’s inability to perform these tasks correctly gives critics of the death penalty more reasons to demand that it be ended. The Death Penalty Information Center reports that 27 states currently allow the death penalty, and lethal injection is the primary method in all of them. However, many states have faced difficulty obtaining the necessary drugs because pharmaceutical companies often refuse to sell them for use in executions. This has led some states to consider other, more controversial methods like gas or electrocution.

Since 2020, there have been several cases of "botched" executions across the United States. The Death Penalty Information Center defines these as cases where the procedure does not follow the planned steps, often causing the prisoner more pain than expected. In several instances, these failures involved long, painful attempts to establish IV access, similar to what happened in Tennessee. These repeated problems have made the debate more intense, as the legal system struggles to balance the requirements of the law with the ethical standards of the medical community.

Looking ahead, the situation remains uncertain. While some officials want to improve the current system, medical professionals argue that there is a "paradox" in trying to make executions more efficient. Dr. Greer explained that to perform an execution well, you would need someone with medical training, but the medical profession forbids its members from doing so. As a result, the state is caught between its legal goals and the refusal of doctors to assist. The letter from the medical professionals asks Governor Lee to overhaul the state’s methods and stop the use of healthcare workers in the process entirely. For now, the debate continues to grow as the state faces pressure from both lawmakers and the medical community to address these deep ethical concerns.