Should Death Row Inmates Be Used for Experiments?

[Colour Scientist]

Basically, you want to torture them for years before eventually ending their misery by putting them down when they are of no more use to you? That is of course, if the experiments don't kill them first. Or at least leave them horribly disfigured, sick and in pain. These people who, as you said, may or may not be innocent would involuntarily be subjected to dangerous, life-threatening tests even though they were already suffering for their crimes in prison and were close to paying the ultimate price anyway.


There's something I don't agree with there, I just can't quite put my finger on it.

 

[Tanakh]

Maybe I should have been more specific. They're taking up space in prison. Maybe this doesn't sound much better, but we have inmates entering prisons every day, so much so that several are overcrowded, at least here in America. While my idea may not be the holiest of options, it's not only freeing up space in prisons, but it's also getting rid of people whom society couldn't care less about in the first place.

Well, i am not against your idea. But only if they accept, and to be fair i am all for human experimentation of any kind as long as it is voluntary.

Congratulations, you are now on the moral level of this man:

OMG Jackie Chan...seriously who the hell is that.

But OT- No that is awful. Just awful.

Shirō Ishii, a rather brilliant microbiologist that also happened to have some weird values.

 

[zerobudgetgamer]

Basically, you want to torture them for years before eventually ending their misery by putting them down when they are of no more use to you? That is of course, if the experiments don't kill them first. Or at least leave them horribly disfigured, sick and in pain.

I never said we leave them like that for years. Curing Diseases was simply the only thing I could think of. If there are other procedures that need human analogues, why not use a human instead? Isn't that what PETA's been petitioning for for years? We have a steady supply of humans that may never re-enter human society, why not take the ones we know will never return and use them for something? As "evil" as it may sound, we simply treat them like horses; one crippling injury, one incurable disease, and then we can grab the needle and let them go peacefully.

 

[orangeban]

No, for three reasons (at least)

1. I oppose the death penatly so in my ideal world no-one should be on death row.
2. The experiments were not part of the original punishment given by the judge.
3. Criminal punishment has to be exact, in order to make it as humane as possible (if you point out that the death penalty isn't humane, as I said, I oppose it anyway) and the results of the experiments won't be exact.

Heck, I'll throw in a fourth, if even one innocent gets injected by some hideous chemical (which would almost certainly happen), well, that would suck, to put it mildly.

 

[zerobudgetgamer]

No, for three reasons (at least)

1. I oppose the death penatly so in my ideal world no-one should be on death row.
2. The experiments were not part of the original punishment given by the judge.
3. Criminal punishment has to be exact, in order to make it as humane as possible (if you point out that the death penalty isn't humane, as I said, I oppose it anyway) and the results of the experiments won't be exact.

Heck, I'll throw in a fourth, if even one innocent gets injected by some hideous chemical (which would almost certainly happen), well, that would suck, to put it mildly.

Fair points. But as I said, I'm not asking everyone to go grab their favorite inmate and start injecting him with SARS or H1N1 or the Plague or anything like that. I admitted I was being vague in not having them consent, so I edited that in. If the inmate consents to being used as a guinea pig, then even if it's a potentially lethal experiment, it can be performed and knowledge can be gained for the betterment of humanity. As to what ends that may be, well, maybe if I had an idea of what experiments need living human analogues, I'd have a better example than just curing diseases.

 

[orangeban]

No, for three reasons (at least)

1. I oppose the death penatly so in my ideal world no-one should be on death row.
2. The experiments were not part of the original punishment given by the judge.
3. Criminal punishment has to be exact, in order to make it as humane as possible (if you point out that the death penalty isn't humane, as I said, I oppose it anyway) and the results of the experiments won't be exact.

Heck, I'll throw in a fourth, if even one innocent gets injected by some hideous chemical (which would almost certainly happen), well, that would suck, to put it mildly.

Fair points. But as I said, I'm not asking everyone to go grab their favorite inmate and start injecting him with SARS or H1N1 or the Plague or anything like that. I admitted I was being vague in not having them consent, so I edited that in. If the inmate consents to being used as a guinea pig, then even if it's a potentially lethal experiment, it can be performed and knowledge can be gained for the betterment of humanity. As to what ends that may be, well, maybe if I had an idea of what experiments need living human analogues, I'd have a better example than just curing diseases.

Oh, if it's optional? Alright, that's fine. But anyone can donate themselves to SCIENCE!!!! if they want. Just make sure a hella lot of compensation is standing by in case of trouble. And only when the test on humans is one of the last possible safety tests.

Also, tests that require humans to work well? Psychology tests, there is only so much you can do with rats.

 

[zerobudgetgamer]

"Some weird values"? There's an understatement. He killed THOUSANDS of chineese PoW. He tested biological warfare agents on them, froze them to death, disected them while they were alive, etc. The only reason he wasn't prosecuted for war crimes was he was hired by the US government to be a lead scientist in their new and expanded biowarefare division.

OK, That sort of stuff is NOT where I was going with this, at least not intentionally. My Aperture Science comment was mainly a joke, since I know there's no such place that would label humans as more expendable than the urine they pass, but the fact that Portal is so critically acclaimed despite being a facility (with a CEO) with such a mindset, I thought there'd be more people open to the idea.

What I meant was the use of inmates solely for the betterment of humanity. As I said to orangeban, I have no real idea what all procedures and experiments require human analogues, so curing diseases was pretty much the only thing that popped into my head. Torturing them in ANY of the ways you mentioned is so far from my idea the fact that everyone's relating me to him is actually quite sickening.

And again, consent would have to be given.

 

[Tanakh]

I actually find rather barbaric that the law dictates what science can or can't research on willing payed test subjects.

IF they are on death row or not, makes little difference.

I mean, you can buy a mountain and blow it to pieces, you can declare wars on countries that ain't related to yours, you can legally mass fire thousands of workers destroying their lives just for profit, you can bet against your country with financial instruments, but you can't make a vale tudo contract with a willing subject for science? WTF.

 

[sinterklaas]

If they consent, yes.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Maybe I should have been more specific. They're taking up space in prison. Maybe this doesn't sound much better, but we have inmates entering prisons every day, so much so that several are overcrowded, at least here in America. While my idea may not be the holiest of options, it's not only freeing up space in prisons, but it's also getting rid of people whom society couldn't care less about in the first place.

Well, i am not against your idea. But only if they accept, and to be fair i am all for human experimentation of any kind as long as it is voluntary.

Congratulations, you are now on the moral level of this man:

OMG Jackie Chan...seriously who the hell is that.

But OT- No that is awful. Just awful.

Shirō Ishii, a rather brilliant microbiologist that also happened to have some weird values.

"Some weird values"? There's an understatement. He killed THOUSANDS of chineese PoW. He tested biological warfare agents on them, froze them to death, disected them while they were alive, etc. The only reason he wasn't prosecuted for war crimes was he was hired by the US government to be a lead scientist in their new and expanded biowarefare division.

Well hey, gotta crack a few eggs to make an omlette.

I'm only partially joking, as horrible as it is, it doesn't stop us from using this mad scientist's data. We learned a lot from the Nazi's scientist's experiments as well as far as medical science goes. I'm not questioning it's morality, but you can't question the obvious benefits.

 

[Michael Logan]

Yea sure, if they are gonna be executed anyway, might aswell have them do something useful before they die.

 

[J4RD]

I think it's perfectly reasonable, so long as it's optional. They're going to die anyway. If they want to do some good before they go, I wouldn't stop them. However, I wouldn't force them to, either.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

Well, they definitely shouldn't become TV personalities. Torchwood zing!

 

[ZEBSER]

I don't understand the connection with Josef Mengele or anyone like him. He experimented on innocent people, were talking about people on DEATH ROW. People who have no chance at life anyway, because of some heinous crime. Why not? Simply because it is immoral? If there on death row, then what they did was also immoral.

 

[gussy1z]

Just from a science-ey kind of view of this. I dont think very good science would be done by this, since im not sure they represent the typical state of the entire population well enough. Although that being said im not sure how diverse the inmates of these prisons are.

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

Of course the candidate would have to be a consenting healthy male. But I'm sure you could find a few of those on death row. (If TV hasn't lied to me).

So a consenting, healty female wouldn't be any good?

OT: I guess it's ok if they were given a description of the experiment in question first and was then given a week(or so) before they had to give their consent or not.

I'm not really for the whole death row thing in the first place since there's been several cases where someone was executed and then they suddenly find evidence the proves the defendant's innocence.

"Oops, turns out we weren't supposed to kill that dude after all... -brushes all the evidence under the carpet-"

 

[Silas13013]

I suppose if the consent then there isn't a real difference between them and the people who volunteer for medication trials or other medical trials. A good number of medical trials have the risk of death anyway so if they consent then I really don't see a reason not to. If they want their death to be significant then by all means.

 

[zerobudgetgamer]

I dont think very good science would be done by this, since im not sure they represent the typical state of the entire population well enough. Although that being said im not sure how diverse the inmates are.

Maybe so, but wouldn't an actual human, regardless of their state, be a better test subject than a human analogue? I mean, I know pigs and rats and monkeys/apes share a lot of similarities with humans, but they're not humans, and what works on them may not necessarily work on us. Just look at Rise of the Planet of the Apes.