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Kenneth Smith ‘struggled for life’ for 22 minutes in Alabama nitrogen gas execution: Updates
(www.independent.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2024
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There's no humane way to take anyone's life against their will.
There are certainly more humane ways. Would you consider drowning or burning someone equivalent to lethal injection? That doesn't sit right with anyone.
there are more humane ways, but killing someone is never humane. Stabbing someone doesn't become humane just because I could've used a wood chipper instead. Killing is never okay, and certainly never humane
That's the point of "humane". It's a sliding scale of "less cruel".
I raise and butcher livestock so I have hands on experience here. At the end of the day an animal is being turned into meat. Just like with an execution, that fact is already set, and "being humane" is about making it happen in the least cruel way possible.
Back in the bad old days the Halal slaughter method was actually the most humane available. You must cut both arteries with a sharp blade. The animal loses blood pressure immediately and is unconscious in seconds. When all you have are sharp objects this is really the best you can do.
However now that we have guns and captive bolt stunners, we consider shooting the animal in the head before making a cut to release the blood to be "more humane".
Part of being humane is also about the humans doing the killing. Do you want to feel like a psycho or like you did the best you could to avoid causing suffering? Most of us would choose the second option.
Bullet to the head is the best execution method I believe, because you can't hold your breath like this guy did and prolong it. There is no dying process, it's an instant transition to being dead.
You are setting that fact. Just like we as a society are setting the punishment for criminals. It's not a law of nature that criminals, or animals, have to die at our hands. That is a choice we make. And if we are already deciding to take the life of a person, talking about "humane" is at best hypocritical.
Capital punishment has been proven to be expensive, cruel, and utterly ineffective at scaring off criminals. So why is it still done, then? There are no logical reasons for it. Yet still people revel in the sense of "justice" stemming from an eye for an eye. It's about revenge, not about keeping victims save or bettering society.
So if cruelty is the point, why worry about how humane it is at all? Someone stabbed their spouse to death? Why not stab them in kind? Hell, I'm sure we can do much better, there's mass murderers and serial killers who have done horrendous things, isn't a humane death to good for them? Why don't we bring back torture? People in the middle ages were quite good at it already, but I'm sure we can do much better by now. Really make them pay for everything they've done.
If you're revolted by that idea, then good. Because that's not how a justice system or a society should function. Revenge is not helping anyone, and should not be the guiding principle in a civilized society.
Seems to really stretch the term "humane" thin. There are a dozen simple examples that poke holes in this wide net. What about killing someone who is willing to die trying kill you? What about someone currently on a suicidal killing spree (as happens once a day at a school)? What about the millions of animals raised for slaughter everyday? All that is the same category as a painless dispatch and a torturous murder?
Being humane is about how you do something given the choice. It has nothing to do about the absolute action.
Please read Consider the Lobster.
https://faculty.etsu.edu/odonnell/readings/lobster_dfwallace.pdf