Peine de mort par injection létale aux États-Unis : quand la loi américaine et la déontologie médicale s'opposent

Lethal injection has occurred in the United States shortly after the restoration of the death penalty in 1977. This recourse to the death penalty is a medical invention (creation by a pathologist and validation by an anesthesiologist) in the proclaimed goal of giving a soft and painless death. Yet after many disastrous experiences, this recourse, considered as ideal and painless, will be returned to cause. The Hippocratic Oath and the Code of Ethics course prohibit the participation of any physician to prepare a method to kill a person. Indeed, this device, yet initiated by the medical profession, is performed by prison staff, without any medical knowledge. But not anesthesiologist who wants. Indeed, during several executions, the “executioners” encountered difficulties during installation infusions, the preparation and administration of sedatives, or the objectification of unconsciousness. Second, lethal injection is controversial in recent years because of misuse of pharmaceuticals, used for purposes contrary to medical ethics. This drug drift would affect access to health care in the United. States but also in France, where we narrowly escaped a shortage of sodium thiopental, through the use of stocks provided for Germany. History repeats itself, when the German company that makes propofol threat no longer provide any U.S. hospital, if the state of Missouri directs execution propofol. These examples illustrate the duality that can exist between ethical considerations and legal realities, sometimes putting physicians in uncomfortable positions, such as anesthetists some U.S. states that require the participation of a physician during executions and ethics that prohibits them.