Clayton Lockett<\/a> and others. \u00a0Or it could result in the state opting for more gruesome and less aesthetically pleasing forms of slaughter such as firing squads.<\/p>\nThe author also argues that execution can be thought of as a form of terminal illness requiring palliative care and that doctors can help ease the soon-to-be decease out of this life with the most skill and efficiency.<\/p>\n
If that sounds an awful lot like the language of euthanasia, that\u2019s because that\u2019s what it is. \u00a0And if it bothers you that Catholic death penalty defenders are in bed with doctors who deploy the language of mercy killing and who eagerly train their consciences to accept and promote that language, it should. \u00a0Because Catholic death penalty defenders are, in fact, arguing for nothing other than giving the state the power to *order* doctors to put people out of our misery. \u00a0And they are fighting the Church tooth and nail to demand that doctors pervert their conscience and their Hippocratic oath to do it.<\/p>\n
Of course, there is an alternative. \u00a0Catholic death penalty defenders could simply reject the folly of fighting the Church to maximize killing and instead defend human life from conception to natural death.<\/p>\n
They could do that instead.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here\u2019s a piece by a doctor arguing that doctors (who are, recall, sworn to \u201cdo no harm\u201d) should be permitted to act as executioners. The logic of his argument is that if doctors don\u2019t do it, then people less qualified may botch the execution, leading to the kind of agonies recently witnessed in the botched […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[278],"class_list":["post-99982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abolish-the-death-penalty"],"yoast_head":"\n
Strange Bedfellows<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here's a piece by a doctor arguing that doctors (who are, recall, sworn to "do no harm") should be permitted to act as executioners. The logic of his\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2017\/04\/strange-bedfellows-5.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Strange Bedfellows\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here's a piece by a doctor arguing that doctors (who are, recall, sworn to "do no harm") should be permitted to act as executioners. 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