Biomedical engineers and participation in judicial executions: capital punishment as a technical problem.
This paper discusses the topic of judicial execution from the perspective of the intersection of the technological issues and the professional ethics issues. Although physicians are generally ethically forbidden from any involvement in the judicial execution process, this does not appear to be the case for engineering professionals. This creates an interesting but controversial opportunity for the engineering community (especially biomedical engineers) to improve the humaneness and reliability of the judicial execution process.
Doyle
John
J
Department of General Anesthesiology, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, 9500 Euclid Avenue, E31 Cleveland, Ohio, 44195, USA. doylej@ccf.org
D001675:Bioethics; D001698:Biomedical Engineering / Q000941:ethics* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D002203:Capital Punishment / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004995:Ethics, Professional; D006801:Humans; D033222:Judicial Role; D014481:United States