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Physicians' attitudes about involvement in lethal injection for capital punishment
Journal article   Open access

Physicians' attitudes about involvement in lethal injection for capital punishment

N Farber, E B Davis, J Weiner, J Jordan, E G Boyer and P A Ubel
Archives of internal medicine (1960), v 160(19), pp 2912-2916
23 Oct 2000
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.160.19.2912
PMID: 11041897
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
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https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.160.19.2912View
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open

Abstract

Capital Punishment Attitude of Health Personnel Cross-Sectional Studies Physicians Humans Middle Aged Female Logistic Models Male Aged Physician's Role
Physicians could play various roles in carrying out capital punishment via lethal injection. Medical societies like the American Medical Association (AMA) and American College of Physicians have established which roles are acceptable and which are disallowed. No one has explored physicians' attitudes toward their potential roles in this process. We surveyed physicians about how acceptable it was for physicians to engage in 8 actions disallowed by the AMA and 4 allowed actions involving lethal injection. Questions assessing attitudes toward capital punishment and assisted suicide were included. The impact of attitudinal and demographic variables on the number of disallowed actions deemed acceptable was analyzed via analysis of variance and multiple logistic regression analysis. Four hundred eighty-two physicians (51%) returned questionnaires. Eighty percent indicated that at least 1 of the disallowed actions was acceptable, 53% indicated that 5 or more were acceptable, and 34% approved all 8 disallowed actions. The percentage of respondents approving of disallowed actions varied from 43% for injecting lethal drugs to 74% for determining when death occurred. All 4 allowed actions were deemed acceptable by the majority of respondents. Favoring the death penalty (P<.001) and the acceptance of assisted suicide (P<.001) were associated with an increased number of disallowed actions that were deemed acceptable. Despite medical society policies, the majority of physicians surveyed approved of most disallowed actions involving capital punishment, indicating that they believed it is acceptable in some circumstances for physicians to kill individuals against their wishes. It is possible that the lack of stigmatization by colleagues allows physicians to engage in such practices. Arch Intern Med. 2000;160:2912-2916

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16 citations in Web of Science
204 citations in Scopus

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Medicine, General & Internal
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