Health professionals, in a furor over an Illinois law that protects doctors who participate in capital punishment from professional censure, are urging colleagues to reinforce their code of ethics.
The challenge is being made at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association at the Chicago Hilton and Towers.
To allow doctors to take part in executions-a clear violation of medical ethics-and then excuse them legally, smacks of Nazi Germany, according to opponents of the state legislation.
“In essence, it’s a law that enters into an area of professional autonomy and creates an immunity from professional discipline for physicians who are involved in executions,” said William P. Gibbons, chief of pathology at Copley Memorial Hospital in Aurora.
The outcry came with the passage May 22 of legislation in Illinois that allows a physician to act outside certain sections of the Medical Practice Act when taking part in capital punishment. While medical personnel other than physicians may administer the lethal injections in Illinois, state law requires that a physician be present to pronounce the inmate dead.
Of the 28 states that require a physician’s attendance at executions, Illinois is the only one that has enacted legislation to protect such physicians from disciplinary action.
The controversial section of the Medical Practice Act normally prohibits physicians from giving controlled substances (including narcotics and drugs for lethal injections) for other than therapeutic reasons, and from “immoral conduct in the commission of any act related to the licensee’s practice.”
The American College of Physicians, American Nurses Association and the American Public Health Association have asked the AMA to pass a resolution condemning the Illinois law.
The proposed resolution, which was scheduled to be voted on Tuesday, says: “The medical profession is solely responsible for establishing and maintaining standards of medical ethics, and the state cannot legislate ethical standards or excuse physicians from their ethical obligations.”
According to the AMA’s code of medical ethics, “A physician, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution.”
An AMA member who contravenes this policy would be subject to disciplinary action by the professional body.
However, the legislation passed last month specifically protects physicians who participate in state ordered-executions from such reprisals, in part by assuring that the physician’s name will remain confidential and inadmissible as evidence in any action. That extends to cash payments for services in order to avoid a paper trail.
Gibbons and colleagues called the legislation, “a remarkably dangerous precedent.”
The concern is being raised at a time when the state is planning to execute several inmates.
The new law was passed to head off attempts by opponents of the death penalty to delay executions, lawmakers said.
The law, which says doctors cannot lose their medical licenses for taking part in executions, was passed as part of a sweeping crime package. The bill, sponsored by House Speaker Lee Daniels (R-Elmhurst), was pushed through the legislature at top speed.
Daniels and other sponsors were prompted by a lawsuit, filed by a group of physicians against the state Department of Professional Regulation, seeking to sanction doctors who participate in executions.
More Top Picks Best Embroidery Machines For Home Business
The doctors lost their lawsuit. But a spokesman for the Department of Corrections said that, even while it was pending, the lawsuit did not scare doctors away from presiding over the executions.