Nine months after Kenneth Smith’s botched lethal injection, state attorney general has asked for approval to kill him with nitrogen

  • @Skyrmir@lemmy.world
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    141 year ago

    The only experiment is doing it to humans. It’s used to kill chickens by the thousands. Because it causes them less stress, leading to better tasting meat.

    • Right. So it’s human medical experimentation on a prisoner. Which, ask any social scientist, is some seriously fucked up, unethical shit.

      • Mindlight
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        51 year ago

        So the method has passed animal testing… What are the next steps in your opinion?

        • @APassenger@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Someone who meets euthanasia standards in a state volunteers to do it.

          If I was terminal, it’s something I’d consider. For science.

          But I don’t think I’d do it so they can kill people with less remorse.

          Talked myself into a corner there. But a bloodless, mess-less, painless way to die could be useful to people who want to die with dignity.

        • In my opinion, the only morally acceptable next step is abolishing the death penalty. But, if I objected solely on the basis of the medical experimentation angle, an extensive formal review of the body of evidence by a panel of actual medical experts, plus not using as a subject a guy who already underwent one botched execution, at the very least?

      • @Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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        11 year ago

        It’s only experimental in that it’s never been done before, everyone knows exactly what’s going to happen and it’s been closen because it’s more humane than exciting options.

        • “It’s only experimental in that it’s never been done before…”

          Why yes, that’s right. Which is what “experimental” means. Assuming you know what will happen before trying something is deeply unscientific.

          • @Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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            -11 year ago

            It’s not like it’s unstudied new science, experiments on prisoners are such a well known bad thing because people did cruel experiments which treated the subjects as objects - this is choosing what’s known to be an effective way to painlessly die over a more painful and less effective method.

            And yes we know what’s going to happen, nitrogen isn’t a new thing and people have asphyxiated due to it before (over a hundred people in the US in the last thirty years), just not when it’s been purposefully administered in a prison.