Anna on The Death Penalty.
The ‘State’ already has the death penalty. It uses it. This State. The United Kingdom.
Yes it does!
I have watched with grim fascination the debates occurring on this blog – for and against the death penalty as a criminal sanction. The passion and the fury fought out in the comments.
I have campaigned for years against the Mental Capacity Act which gives the State the ability to sentence to death perfectly innocent citizens. Apart from a select few commentators, there is very little interest in the matter.
What is it? I am genuinely puzzled.
Is it the fact that the people condemned to death are mere ‘loon-brains’, not quite ‘all there’?
Why is everyone so complacent about the State having the ability to kill – in a particularly gruesome fashion – its own citizens under the guise of making a decision on their behalf that they would be better off dead, that leaves us, in general, unmoved – and yet we rise up with passion and commitment to ensure that the State cannot be trusted with the ability to kill criminals.
Are you all (those in favour of bringing back hanging) quite content that you will never be judged lacking in mental capacity – but might find yourself unfairly convicted of murder? Is it personal interest?
Is it that our view of mental incapacity is still Victorian in outlook, that we don’t accord these people the same citizen rights that we feel we should enjoy?
Is it that somehow starving and dehydrating someone to death is less obscene than hanging them?
Is it the fact that death occurs in hospital behind a cloak of ‘caring’ – so not as ‘in your face’ as hanging?
If the law was changed – as in the case of the Mental Capacity Act – so that judges could make the decision on behalf of murderers that it would be ‘in their best interests’ to be hanged, that their life ‘was futile’; would you then calmly accept the death penalty for Murder?
It is well known that I am totally opposed to taking a life deliberately under any circumstances; that is why I have stayed silent throughout this debate – I simply cannot get worked up about the state hanging murderers whilst we allow the state to murder the totally innocent.
I am not singling anyone out on either side of the debate, but I am genuinely interested in why so many new commentators have felt moved to say their piece on the subject of hanging criminals, and yet have hitherto remained silent as the State – this State – the United Kingdom, goes about its business of deliberately killing the incontrovertibly innocent.
Is anyone brave enough to say why they have spoken out on hanging and not on the death of say Tony Bland?
Edited to add: This piece sounds very harsh, as though I am criticising you all – really I’m not, just trying to understand why one variety of State dictated death is acceptable and another not.
August 20, 2011 at 21:00
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An old frail man dying the Liverpool way, his lips being wet, which is all
that is allowed, yet he desperately tries to suck out some water from the
sponge…. is that what we have come to that we allow this to happen?
- August 20, 2011 at 20:48
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Anna,
As I wrote an article in support of the death penalty on this site a few
days ago, I feel obliged to directly answer this article:
I am opposed to euthanasia. I consider the practice of euthanasia to be
morally repugnant. I oppose abortion too. I am against the massacre of the
innocent.
I think, however, the following reads that the acceptance of capital
punishment is mutually inclusive of the acceptance of euthanasia: “Are you all
(those in favour of bringing back hanging) quite content that you will never
be judged lacking in mental capacity?”
They are not mutually inclusive to me.
My rationale for supporting the death penalty while opposing abortion and
euthanasia is written in detail here: http://politicsontoast.com/2011/08/05/why-i-support-the-reintroduction-of-the-death-penalty019/
I can be just as passionate about opposing euthanasia as I am about
supporting the death penalty.
I have no complacency at all about euthanasia. I just didn’t mention it in
my article because the article was explicitly about the death penalty.
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August 21, 2011 at 00:39
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If you support capital punishment for drug dealers, and oppose
euthanasia, then a person diagnosed with MS, who wished to end it all, would
merely need to set up a crack stand in Trafalgar Square.
- August 20, 2011 at 20:25
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Medically sanctioned murder is a whole subject by itself.
There was a piece in Pajamas Media in which the writer was forced to stand
back and watch a person killed by lack of medical support because he had
signed a “living will” in which he had asked not to be kept artificially
alive.
The writer said he felt the person, who could not talk, was pleading
with him to save his life.
(I do think the whole “living will” thing is
bravado that is undertaken by people who do not actually realise what stepping
through death’s door entails.)
I have read about the concept of allowing someone to die by refusing them
food and water. It does sound gruesome and I have assumed that the person so
dying was heavily drugged, and was basically far beyond conciousness.
It is awful and I quite candidly state that I would like everything
possible be done to keep me alive.
You are correct that such killing is covered up by being administered by
the caring profession, although it must surely go against the Hippocratic
oath.
I have also thought that perhaps because as we have become so expert at
death avoidance the awful choices that doctors face have made these kind of
circumstances unavoidable? (Just look at some of the sentiments, and ways of
dealing with events that are expressed on the TV real life A&E programmes.
The sensibilities have become blunted.)
Who takes on the role of caring, feeding, administering medicine to the
presumed terminally ill? Spanish hospitals seem quite good in this regard: it
becomes the responsibility of the family if there are any available.
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August 20, 2011 at 17:26
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There is an obvious parallel between capital punishment and the withdrawal
of life support, in that they both involve the state making a decision to
cause a citizen to die. However, there are equally obvious differences as
well. Withdrawing life support from someone in a persistent vegetative state
isn’t an attempt to punish that person. It’s an attempt to either hasten the
end of that person’s suffering (assuming they can experience suffering in a
PVS) or cease pointlessly prolonging a life which, to all intents and
purposes, has already ended.
That being said, it’s clearly the worst of the three available options in
these types of cases, namely:
1. Keep the person alive. I imagine this is what most of us would prefer.
Keep the machines turned on, make the heart beat, the lungs breath, and maybe
at some point medical science will advance to the stage where the patient
could be cured. With most patients, that just not going to happen though, and
we end up in a situation where our hospitals are full of octogenarian PVS
patients and we end up facing the same dilemma only this time we’re trying to
work out if the machines are stopping the patients from dying of old age. And
by that time, most of their relatives will be dead, so there are leas people
the state can ask for guidance. Even so, this is probably the most preferable
of the three.
2. Speed their passing. They’re not going to get better. They’re either
suffering terribly or no longer capable of experiencing anything at all. So
why drag it out for the poor buggers? Downsides are (a) the aforesaid medical
advances might happen; and (b) the law calls it murder.
(c) stop trying to keep them alive. So they starve to death. If they’re no
longer capable of experiencing sensation, this isn’t really cruel, though by
the same rationale, neither would be firing them into a brick wall using a
large, brightly painted cannon, and we don’t do that because it’s
disrespectful and a bit icky. Much like deliberately starving someone to
death. If they ARE capable of experiencing sensation, then it’s cruel,
disrespectful and icky.
None of the three options are perfect, and all involve misery and
suffering. It’s kind of depressing that we’ve managed to pick the one that’s
obviously the worst as our preferred national policy, though
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August 20, 2011 at 15:41
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I took notice when you first published this. I’ve followed the issue as
best I can, in several ways since and I’m no less worried. Apart from emigrate
which not everyone can do, it does make one spend time researching and trying
to figure out how to avoid the fate the State may have in store for you, and
how to save one’s loved ones from it too. Powers of Attorney are not
infallible either, they can be overridden in such a way that it still
happens.
I’m glad you still keep up the issue.
- August 20, 2011 at 05:16
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The old man died of cancer in the 1980′s. Mercifully he retained cognitive
function to the end and made the choice to die at home.
Very sensibly, the local GP who will remain nameless, prescribed his pain
control medication. He pointed out that the pills were very strong and on no
account whatsoever should my father take more than two in a twenty-four hour
period because they would cause certain (an albeit painless) death.
He prescribed twenty. A sensible chap.
- August 19, 2011 at 18:53
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“The State” – the United kingdom – currently sanctions the killing of human
beings who are; a) not terminally ill, and; b) have not been convicted by the
Courts of a ‘crime’ of which they are suspected.
1) By the military acting in defence of the Realm (as defined by
Parliament).
2) By Police and Members of the Public reacting to imminent
threats to their own life and/or others by (suspected) criminals.
I’m (somewhat reluctantly) prepared to accept that some people consider ALL
such incidents to be ‘murder’ – providing they agree to including a parent
trying to prevent someone killing their child, or Police pursuing someone
seeking a 10th victim of their gun rampage. And to abolish all of our armed
forces.
[FWIW – an uncle of mine spent much of WW2 in prison because he DID believe
in the immorality of all killing and all war, to the extent that he refused
even to do medical work to aid civilian casualties of the Blitz (If they died,
it might have convinced everyone war was ‘so terrible’ we would have
surrendered and saved other lives)]
- August 19, 2011 at 17:46
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Once you get the courts involved you are in trouble. When I worked in the
NHS 20 years ago, every day doctors nurses, patients and relatives would come
to an understanding about what was in the best interests of a terminally ill
patient and the key thing was always to minimise suffering. And the system
worked – in that we muddled through each messy difficult individual situation.
If it gets to court then compassion and dignity go straight out of the window
and I imagine nobody is happy with the outcome
- August 19, 2011 at 05:35
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PS – in connection to Euthanasia, it’s a disgrace we can’t decide on our
own exit strategy. My parents protected me when many of our relatives died,
and hearing comments above reminds me that many people don’t just go in the
night, they die slowly, losing their mind in the process, and dignity, in a
harrowing experience for the relatives as well as the deceased. My father was
depresed for 3 years following his Father, Mother and Sister going west in a
slow and protracted way.
Why we are not allowed to pull the plug ourselves is beyond me, lord knows
how liberated we would feel if we could make the pain stop and save our
relatives from the trauma, and maybe say goodbye for the last time with sound
mind.
Instead we leave the fox with the broken leg at the side of the road,
without reversing back over it like we know we should.
No euthanasia – state sponsored torture. (my father even tried to make a
“pillow deal” with me after all this – whatever he saw must have been
awfull)
Tears in my eyes thinking of how we are go back to our maker in a cold,
flourescent room surrounded by strangers who couldn’t give a fuck.
Legal system writen by corrupt moralising bastards IMO.
- August 19, 2011 at 05:20
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Well said Anna, hanging is murder. Even if you accept the argument of “life
for a life”, (which I don’t) you still have the matter of making mistakes. We
have yet not mastered the art of re-animating corpses, and until this happens
the matter is dead and buried IMO!
- August 18, 2011 at 20:36
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This is the Catholic Church’s doctrine on:- Capital Punishment
The two
relevant paragraphs, (2266, & 2267) , and more, can be found in
:-www.vatican.va
2266 The State’s effort to contain the spread of behaviors injurious to
human rights and the fundamental rules of civil coexistence corresponds to the
requirement of watching over the common good. Legitimate public authority has
the right and duty to inflict penalties commensurate with the gravity of the
crime. the primary scope of the penalty is to redress the disorder caused by
the offense. When his punishment is voluntarily accepted by the offender, it
takes on the value of expiation. Moreover, punishment, in addition to
preserving public order and the safety of persons, has a medicinal scope: as
far as possible it should contribute to the correction of the
offender.67
2267 The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude,
presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the
offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way
to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor. “If,
instead, bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to
protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such
means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common
good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person. “Today,
in fact, given the means at the State’s disposal to effectively repress crime
by rendering inoffensive the one who has committed it, without depriving him
definitively of the possibility of redeeming himself, cases of absolute
necessity for suppression of the offender ‘today … are very rare, if not
practically non-existent.’[John Paul II, Evangelium vitae 56.]
In consideration of the above and especially (2267) I consider this:-
I have read somewhere that the majority of murders in the UK are family
related. Jealousy or angry disputes. Clearly one would expect that the
perpetrator of such murders, family or other, would, afterwards, regret what
they have done and certainly would be very unlikely to present an ongoing
hazard to society. It seems to me that the first half of the last sentence in
the Vatican document, applies to people such as these. In all probability the
central interest in the judgement would be on the severity with which the
crime is regarded. Quite probably a prison sentence would be acceptable to all
corners of society.
However, the second part of the last sentence in the Vatican document would
seem to address those murderers who express no remorse, and quite clearly may
well murder again, given the opportunity. Such people might be the Huntingdon
murderer, the person who just recently committed those horrible killings in
Norway, and so on. In such cases the Church leaves open the possibility of a
legitimate death sentence being carried out.
It also follows from the Vatican document that the State sanctioned
killings as described in Anna’s post are illegal in the Law, and those
perpetrating such events will have a fearsome reckoning to face.
Heaven help them
- August 21, 2011 at 08:26
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“It also follows from the Vatican document that the State sanctioned
killings as described in Anna’s post are illegal in the Law”.
Only if, for some strange pre-Enlightenment reason, you accept Catholic
doctrine as “the Law”. Which it isn’t. Not even in Malta, Eire or the
Philippines.
I’m certainly not saying that either judicial execution or the barbarity
of the Liverpool Care Pathway are good things but the former is legal in
many jurisdictions (and is a fundamental part of Shari’ah, for example) and
it isn’t, as IanB expressed, always the death that is the
regrettable thing in the latter case, but the unpleasant methodology.
- August 18,
2011 at 15:07
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“And the nurse was very emphatic and very stern. “She is dying from
cancer,” she said. “
The nurse was clearly well-trained in lying to relatives. I wonder if the
training succeeded in allowing her to lie to herself?
I hope not. I hope the thought of what she took part in keeps her awake at
nights, when she’s old and feeble, fearing what will happen to her.
- August 18, 2011 at 15:36
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Be fair… what choice does she have? Administering a fatal dose of
morphine and being caught and hounded through the press? She probably wants
to care for people as best as the law allows, and also wants relatives to
feel better about their lack of choices and options too.
- August
18, 2011 at 17:45
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No sympathy. She’s medically trained, she knows EXACTLY what she’s
doing. And if she did that to an animal in her care, the RSPCA would
rightly prosecute her.
That the nurses’ unions haven’t stood firm and refused to have a hand
in this is to their eternal shame.
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August 18, 2011 at 16:42
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Julia, I don’t know if it’s so much “well-trianed in lying to relatives”
as it’s that the Palliative Care Movement have a very strong groupthink.
That was the perception I got at the time, I remember me and my sister
discussing it. There’s a kind of happy-clappy certainty to them and a very
specific mindset.
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August 18, 2011 at 14:46
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My mother was executed four years ago by Liverpool Care Path. I wanted her
to die, don’t get me wrong. Her brain had imploded. She would never regain
consciousness, probably. Her body had betrayed her by fighting the cancer too
long when she deserved to be allowed peace.
After that last episode of consciousness- we presume a brain haemorrhage,
and she lay shrieking and writhing on the floor (her nervous system firing
entirely arbitrarily like a broken robot in a bad science fiction movie)- and
she slipped into unconsciousness; her last volitional act was an attempt to
brush off an oxygen mask put there by the ambulance man; and she went back to
the hospice, and my sister and I went in to see her. And she was a vegetable.
But nobody had even officially told us she was to die the Liverpool way, nor
what that was, and we only found out because a nurse mentioned she was on it,
and we asked the hospice staff, “what is the Liverpool Care Path?”, so then
they sat us down and told us. But they had decided, without even consulting
us, that that was what they were now going to do. It was probably the only
decision. It was still nonetheless made unilaterally by the doctors.
She took a week to die. There was one particular evening, when I came so
close to going to the hospice and putting a pillow over her face. You see, I
was terrified that she could still feel. Just because she was incapable of
action, that did not mean she was not in terrible pain inside, perhaps even
conscious but entirely isolated from the world. She died three days later.
I remember once, saying to a nurse- not accusing, just observing- “she’s
dying from lack of food and water”. And the nurse was very emphatic and very
stern. “She is dying from cancer,” she said. That wasn’t true.
I would rather have killed my mother than starved and dehydrated her to
death, personally. But that is just me.
- August
18, 2011 at 15:05
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It’s not just you.
- August 18, 2011 at 11:43
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Anna
I followed the link to your 2009 post on Tony Bland, and there right across
the top was a banner advert to sign an e-petition to bring back the death
penalty. I suppose that’s the problem with allowing ads on your site, you have
no control over their content.
- August 18, 2011 at 10:54
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Anna I understand exactly what you are referring to as I witnessed the
death of a relative in hospital in this manner. He was in the advanced stages
of Parkinsons desease.
He was taken in to hospital after only 2 days in a nursing home where he
had been neglected by the disinterested staff. He was not given any of his
usual medication, no food or water and it took him 10 days to die. Repeated
requests to the nursing staff for pain killers and water were ignored with
comments like ‘Yes, yes we will will get to him soon…’
The whole family were deeply traumatised by the experience for months
after. It was a rotten way to die.
Over the years since I have reflected on it and just make the following
observations:
His wife was in her late 70′s and was becoming ill with the
stress of being a 24 hour carer which is why he was put in the nursing home
for what was going to be 4 weeks respite for her.
Although the nursing home
was charging £1,000 per week, some, not all, of the staff were off-hand and
callous. All were over-worked and lowly paid and most were foreigners with
varying abilities in English.
In the hospital nearly all the staff were
foreign workers who had difficulty with English, were a different alien
culture, and all looked mentally and physically exhausted. It was not that
nobody cared it was more that they had all been so beaten down by the system
that their caring had been used up and now they were just getting through
their days as best they could.
Although the man and his wife were
relatively well off they could not afford a full-time carer from outside the
home. They had a carer visit at the beginning and at the end of each day (she
was wonderful) but it was not enough to take the strain away from his wife.
despite the rest of the family helping as much as they could they all had very
busy lives and businesses and children to run too.
The State which had
taken over half this man’s income while he was living now abandoned him and
conspired in his death. Unfortunately thinking of the State in this way is not
realistic. It is the mass of people engaged in formulating the rules and
systems that make up the State but no one individual would have designed this
terrible process.
Ultimately the minister for health and cabinet colleagues
are responsible but in our broken system career politicians are not interested
in responsibility only in personal gains in power, money or kudos. And in any
case it has been proven many times before that central planning of anything
DOES NOT WORK.
In my opinion the only solution is to let people keep their money and allow
the free market to provide the necessary care solutions at a reasonable price.
The NHS is rotten and the stink gets worse every day. It does little well and
does many things so badly that it ruins the lives of patients and medical
staff alike.
- August 18,
2011 at 10:46
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The capital punishment arguement is a standalone one. We are asking if the
state should be given the right to kill it’s citizens when they commit a
crime.
It can’t be argued by saying what about the people we kill in wars,
what about euthanasia etc. This case must be argued on it’s own merits and
information. Bringing other scenarios into the fold just colours the
issue.
- August 18, 2011 at 10:17
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The two situations are very different, and to meld the two is disingenuous
in the extreme. Capital punishment is an act of action, withdrawing treatment
from someone is an act of omission. In the former, the intention is to provide
society with retribution. The latter is done with the intention of avoiding
any prolonging of the act of dying or preventing suffering if there is no
realistic hope of recovery. Yes, outcomes may effectively be the same, but
intentions are important here.
It is a doctor’s duty to prevent death and suffering – not to prolong the
act of dying. Now of course, we are all dying . Slowly. But most of us are the
fortunate position of being able to express our wishes in relation to our
lives and deaths. The state has determined that those not in such a fortunate
position can have their decisions made for them by a court. This is far from
ideal – but it may be the least worst solution if there is no living will.
The fact that the law seems to think that withdrawing treatment is the best
option is sad, if not cruel. I would hope that there could be some action to
help ensure a painless death in these rare circumstances.
- August
18, 2011 at 10:41
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I’d have no problem with the State deciding that this person ‘wouldn’t
have wanted to live like this’ (all the usual caveats about evidence for
such, etc) if they at least then gave them an instant lethal injection.
To starve and dehydrate someone to death – consoling yourself by saying
that you aren’t actively killing the patient, you’re just ‘assisting death’
– is monstrous.
- August 18, 2011 at 13:22
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And it’s standard policy now in hospitals to kill the elderly
(unofficially of course – no-one would admit to it). You’d probably pray
for the welcome relief of some C-diff or MRSA if you were being slowly
starved & dehydrated.
- August 18, 2011 at 15:07
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Yes. Exactly correct.
- August 18, 2011 at 12:01
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‘The two situations are very different, and to meld the two is
disingenuous in the extreme.’
In my opinion, they are points on a
continuum. Granting the state the power of death over individuals it regards
as having no worthwhile purpose for themselves, their family or society
without extreme scrutiny plants a very thick wedge in all our future safety.
We give vicious dogs a kinder death than we grant to those who are deemed to
be suffering and beyond medical help, ie inconvenient reminders of our lack
of omnipotence, ramping up their suffering to unknown levels in order to
salve some atavistic religious sentiment.
Being labelled as lacking mental capacity is no respecter of class or
status or history. It’s an equal opportunity destiny, especially in the
hands of a state which has a dislike of dissenters and rebels. As an
innocent may find their neck in the noose, a sane (wo)man may find
themselves strapped to a bed deprived of food and water ‘for their own
good’.
- August 19, 2011 at 21:25
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What is “melding”?
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August 25, 2011 at 20:39
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It’s a melding of melting and welding.
- August 18, 2011 at 09:45
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Anna: one of the reasons I visit your blog is that I find your pieces on
Mental Capacity and the Court of Protection and Euthanasia fascinating, and
informative, to the extent they have prompted me to draw up an advance
directive and talk over all the options with my consultant and close
friends.
Your comparison with the death penalty argument had not occurred to me, but
it’s a point well made.
- August 18, 2011 at 09:52
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Thank-you gladiolys. Every person who takes notice is heart warming.
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August 18, 2011 at 11:40
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You’re welcome – and good to see you back “behind the bar”. I hope
you’re feeling better.
- August 18, 2011 at 09:25
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The link for ‘download the papers’ on the ‘Tony Bland’ piece (linked from
this piece )brings up ‘no longer available’ and the goverment archive is
‘experiencing ‘technical difficulties’.
- August 18, 2011 at 09:51
- August 18, 2011 at 08:45
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Anna,
I had not considered this aspect of the argument.
This leaves me to think consider the right to die for an individual. If it
is ok for the state to declare someone should be terminated surely a person,
who is in the best position to judge whether they wish to live or die, should
have the same right.
Maybe I am being silly to think that an individual should have the same
rights over their live as the elite of Government/Judiciary can have over a
person they have limited or no background information on.
I personally would wish to die under certain circumstances of total mental
incapacitation, where I am being kept alive by machines. When the lights are
on but nobody is home.
I dare say my mother law would step forward to assist in my euthinasia, she
has been calling for my head for years anyway.
- August 18, 2011 at 15:06
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“I dare say my mother law would step forward to assist in my euthinasia,
she has been calling for my head for years anyway”
Am I alone in having a really lovely mother-in-law who actually likes
me?
- August 19, 2011 at 09:29
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Nope. Mine won’t have me killed, at least not ’til she’s learned to fix
her own computer.
- August 18, 2011 at 08:40
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Further to your comments, Anna – we’re already burdened by a state which
has sanctioned the indiscriminate execution of countless Iraqis and Afghans
over the last 20 years. As Voltaire rightly said, “All murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers, and to the sound of trumpets.”
{ 38 comments }