The Catechism of the Catholic Church holds that if non-lethal methods are sufficient for preventing a criminal from doing further harm, then those methods should be preferred over lethal punishment. It isn’t difficult to imagine why: The Catholic Church values a consistent respect for human life, the kind of approach Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernadin called “a seamless garment”—that a person’s guilt or innocence is irrelevant to the inherent value of their life. That's why the Church has long opposed capital punishment. Pope John Paul II was an especially eloquent and dedicated advocate for life. Pope Francis, too, has called for the abolition of the death penalty, saying, “It is impossible to imagine that states today cannot make use of another means than capital punishment to defend peoples' lives from an unjust aggressor.”
With overwhelming papal consensus and such sound theological reasoning on the Church’s side, one might presume American Catholics are generally united in opposing the use of capital punishment. But that isn’t the case, and a 2014 Pew report found that a significant racial gap divides American Catholics on the subject of capital punishment.
More from the New Republic.
Showing posts with label death penalty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death penalty. Show all posts
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Let’s Stop Pretending the Death Penalty Is a Medical Procedure
An editorial from Scientific American:
The idea of testing how to most effectively kill a healthy person runs contrary to the spirit and practice of medicine. Doctors and nurses are taught to first “do no harm”; physicians are banned by professional ethics codes from participating in executions. Scientific protocols for executions cannot be established, because killing animal subjects for no reason other than to see what kills them best would clearly be unethical. Although lethal injections appear to be medical procedures, the similarities are just so much theater.
Yet even if executions are not medical, they can affect medicine. Supplies of propofol, a widely used anesthetic, came close to being choked off as a result of Missouri's plan to use the drug for executions... The manufacturer feared that if the drug was used for lethal injection, E.U. regulators would ban all exports of propofol to the U.S....
Propofol is the most popular anesthetic in the U.S. It is used in some 50 million cases a year—everything from colonoscopies to cesareans to open-heart surgeries—and nearly 90 percent of the propofol used in the U.S. comes from the E.U. After 11 months, Missouri relented and agreed to return the drug.
Such incidents illustrate how the death penalty can harm ordinary citizens.
The idea of testing how to most effectively kill a healthy person runs contrary to the spirit and practice of medicine. Doctors and nurses are taught to first “do no harm”; physicians are banned by professional ethics codes from participating in executions. Scientific protocols for executions cannot be established, because killing animal subjects for no reason other than to see what kills them best would clearly be unethical. Although lethal injections appear to be medical procedures, the similarities are just so much theater.
Yet even if executions are not medical, they can affect medicine. Supplies of propofol, a widely used anesthetic, came close to being choked off as a result of Missouri's plan to use the drug for executions... The manufacturer feared that if the drug was used for lethal injection, E.U. regulators would ban all exports of propofol to the U.S....
Propofol is the most popular anesthetic in the U.S. It is used in some 50 million cases a year—everything from colonoscopies to cesareans to open-heart surgeries—and nearly 90 percent of the propofol used in the U.S. comes from the E.U. After 11 months, Missouri relented and agreed to return the drug.
Such incidents illustrate how the death penalty can harm ordinary citizens.
Thursday, April 3, 2014
See where every execution has taken place since 1977, in one map
From the Washington Post, where the graphic resides:
A majority of Americans support the death penalty, but their ranks have been shrinking for 17 years, according to a new Pew Research Center poll.
As of 2013, 55 percent of adults say they back the death penalty for convicted murderers, while 37 percent say they do not. That’s a sizable difference from two years earlier, when support won out with 62 percent with 31 percent opposed. A majority of whites, Republicans and independents support the death penalty, while majorities of Hispanics, blacks and Democrats do not.
A majority of Americans support the death penalty, but their ranks have been shrinking for 17 years, according to a new Pew Research Center poll.
As of 2013, 55 percent of adults say they back the death penalty for convicted murderers, while 37 percent say they do not. That’s a sizable difference from two years earlier, when support won out with 62 percent with 31 percent opposed. A majority of whites, Republicans and independents support the death penalty, while majorities of Hispanics, blacks and Democrats do not.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Death Sentences and Executions 2012
Top five executing countries were China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and USA...
Despite some disappointing setbacks the global trend towards ending the death penalty continued last year, said Amnesty International, as it released new global figures on executions and death sentences.
The figures...show that there were at least 682 confirmed executions around the world last year, two more than in 2011. Meanwhile, there were at least 1,722 newly-imposed death sentences in 58 countries, compared to 1,923 in 63 countries in 2011. This meant that at least 23,386 people were under sentence of death worldwide at the end of 2012.
Twenty-one countries are confirmed as having carried out executions in 2012 - the same number as in 2011 - but Amnesty pointed out that this is significantly down from levels a decade ago (28 countries carried out executions in 2003). Last year Latvia became the 97th country in the world to remove the death penalty for all crimes, and Amnesty’s figures show that more than two-thirds of the world’s countries (140) are now “abolitionist in law or practice”. Last year also saw a major academic study in the USA which rejected arguments that the death penalty is a deterrent against crime, a finding that Amnesty welcomed as it called on the one in ten countries still conducting executions to abandon the practice.
However, there were reverses in 2012 and Amnesty expressed strong concern at a resumption of executions in several countries - India, Japan, Pakistan and Gambia - that had not used the death penalty for some time.
From Amnesty International: press release and report [PDF].
Despite some disappointing setbacks the global trend towards ending the death penalty continued last year, said Amnesty International, as it released new global figures on executions and death sentences.
The figures...show that there were at least 682 confirmed executions around the world last year, two more than in 2011. Meanwhile, there were at least 1,722 newly-imposed death sentences in 58 countries, compared to 1,923 in 63 countries in 2011. This meant that at least 23,386 people were under sentence of death worldwide at the end of 2012.
Twenty-one countries are confirmed as having carried out executions in 2012 - the same number as in 2011 - but Amnesty pointed out that this is significantly down from levels a decade ago (28 countries carried out executions in 2003). Last year Latvia became the 97th country in the world to remove the death penalty for all crimes, and Amnesty’s figures show that more than two-thirds of the world’s countries (140) are now “abolitionist in law or practice”. Last year also saw a major academic study in the USA which rejected arguments that the death penalty is a deterrent against crime, a finding that Amnesty welcomed as it called on the one in ten countries still conducting executions to abandon the practice.
However, there were reverses in 2012 and Amnesty expressed strong concern at a resumption of executions in several countries - India, Japan, Pakistan and Gambia - that had not used the death penalty for some time.
From Amnesty International: press release and report [PDF].
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Death Sentences and Executions 2011
From The Use of the Death Penalty in 2011:
The USA was the only country in the G8 to have carried out executions in 2011. Three countries in the G20 carried out executions in 2011: China, Saudi Arabia and the USA.
The USA and Belarus were the only two of the 56 Member States of the Organization for Security and Co- operation in Europe to have carried out executions in 2011.
The USA was the only country in the G8 to have carried out executions in 2011. Three countries in the G20 carried out executions in 2011: China, Saudi Arabia and the USA.
The USA and Belarus were the only two of the 56 Member States of the Organization for Security and Co- operation in Europe to have carried out executions in 2011.
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