Should Death Row Inmates Be Used for Experiments?

[Terminal Blue]

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

It's already been answered, but that's Shiro Ishii, commander of Unit 731.

Look it up, and try not to feel some measure of horror.

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.

The people Ishii tortured to death were nominally guilty of crimes. Looting, opposing the Japanese occupation, 'seditious activities', political activism. Most would have been executed anyway.

Many of the people Mengle tortured to death were also nominally guilty of crimes. 'Race crime' was a part of German law at the time.

National law cannot supersede international law. That's very specifically stated in the Nuremberg articles. Because a government has declared someone guilty of a crime does not grant dispensation to torture them or to treat them inhumanely.

If you've done something deserving of the death penalty you've forfeited your humanity. Give them the choice, certainly, don't force it on them, but as far as i'm concerned no one on that row is human.

Maybe in my opinion you've just forfeited your humanity by saying that.

Or perhaps noone has the right to decide who is and is not human. That's not the purpose of a legal system.

Crimes are acts, they are not states of being. The law cannot punish people based on 'who they are', it can only base its judgement on whether a crime has been committed.

 

[zerobudgetgamer]

Let's take a moment here and assume that some person has been wrongfully convicted of a crime for which said person will receive the death sentence.

Now, with your proposal, said person, once convicted, would be at the mercy of experimenting scientists until the day that they either received a lethal injection OR THE DAY THEY WERE EXONERATED OF THAT CRIME.

Do you not understand the definition of Consent?? I've said it quite a few times already, I'm not saying we grab someone who's just been put on Death Row and start injecting him with lethal drugs and/or diseases while he's kicking, screaming, and pleading for them to stop. I'm saying the person's been on Death Row for maybe a year or so - I've heard the average time most people sit on Death Row is around 10 years, so we could even bump it up to two or three years - and there's no sign that he's going to be proven innocent. He's then given a choice; he can either sit in his cell for the rest of his days, or he can go outside and participate in an experiment/trial/procedure/whatever. If possible, payments could be made to his family for his participation.

So, given your example, the wrongfully convicted person may have no hope for the justice system, and will instead see this as a way to choose how he dies, rather than have the government decide for him, while also receiving a small bit of reparations for his family. Now, of course, if the procedures work, he lives, he benefits mankind, and who knows? His help to the project might just get used to help free him and get him off Death Row.

Your logic is that there going to die anyway and while they wait they take up space ,in a way so do the terminally ill and there is a lesser chance that they get cured miraculously .Do you want to do tests on the terminally ill?

Aren't they technically tested on, anyway? Aren't experimental procedures performed on terminally ill patients all the time? Isn't that how Chemotherapy came to be?

Absolutely not. That's just immoral and cruel.

And just plain killing them isn't?

Did he say that? Well if he did I'm going to say both of them are immoral.

But besides the death penalty is supposed to be quick and painless (I say supposed to because sometimes it isn't). Medical experiments aren't always painless and they certainly aren't quick.

I didn't create this thread to debate the death penalty. People who are opposed to the death penalty seem to automatically be opposed to this, as has been seen in a few posts. From my point of view, the Death Penalty is the government telling a person how and when he will die. Consent to Experimentation is the person telling the government how he wishes/chooses to (possibly) die. While a premature death is still the result, at least the latter, IMO, is slightly more humane than the former.

 

[UnknownGunslinger]

If it's consensual I don't see why not.
I can see how few people who are destined to die would like to contribute something to society in their last moments on earth.
I think it is a good thing.
Like the way they used the body of Joseph Paul Jernigan for the Visible Human Project.
I'd like to think he felt good for doing something that will be beneficial to thousands of people in his last moments on earth.

 

[CarlMin]

Well, I would certainly think its wrong. But one could argue that perfoming experienments on sadistic inmates who probably suffer from some kind of antisocial disorder is more ethical than performing cruel tests on monkeys and apes, sentient beings that after all have practically the same ability to feel psychological and emotional pain and suffering as human beings, not to mention physical pain.

So that's a tough question for you escapists who condemn the OP while supporting experiments on primates.

 

[WickedSkin]

Should there even be such a thing as "death row inmates" to start with?

 

[books of war 13]

i'm not sure in my county but it can't happen in america because their Constitution says no cruel and unusual punishments

 

[renegade7]

It would be cruel and unusual punishment. Of course, they should be provided the option, just not have it forced on them, otherwise it's torture.

 

[aashell13]

Historically the corpses of executed criminals were used for medical research; mostly as dissection cadavers for med school anatomy lectures.

So there is precedent for the practice, but i'm not sure that makes it a good idea. The death penalty as punishment for a duly convicted crime is one thing, experimentation is quite another. Informed consent would have to be retained, because laws against cruel and unusual punishment would prohibit participation in an experiment as part of a sentence. Perhaps therapies which are riskier than normally permitted in human trials might be tested on prisoners awaiting execution, but only if informed consent was obtained beforehand and stringent ethical and oversight standards met.

 

[Exterminas]

I would like to remark that Shirō Ishii got out of being punished for his War Crimes by selling his results to the US.

So the question if the United States want to sink to that level isn't realy accuarte. A more interesting question would be, what they did to justify such a purchase.

Maybe I am too harsh, after all World War II wasn't exactly moral high ground for anyone. But I sometimes have the feeling that the US tend to see themselves as the good guys and Hitler and Stalin as the bad guys.

 

[BlumiereBleck]

This type of things is straight out of Nazi Germany (go look up Josef Mengele for a quick history lesson)

DAMMIT BEAT TO IT!!!


Glad i wasnt the only one who immediately thought of Joe

 

[Scarim Coral]

No since I think it's inhumane even to these evil crimials. I don't think it's justify to experiment on these people as the whole experiment itself would be an evil act.
Beside I would fear for the day when it came biting us in the ass when we accidently give this murderous crimial superpowers (well it's unlikely but that how some science superhero/ villain came to be).

 

[[zonking great]]

I say, why not? Let's face it. America has the death penalty. There's nothing sane people can do about that. From what I recently read, the whole sherade can take up to 40 years. That is 40 years you have to feed, house and clothe an inmate. 40 years of one person's life that is in some cases better than other poor people who have not committed crimes. So why not experiment on the bastards?

People who object to this, be aware:
Today's space program of both the NASA and the ESA? Made with technology that was invented by Nazis. Lye? Originally made out of the ashes of burnt bodies. Tons of "advancements" we now use on a daily basis owe their existance to original intended use in warfare. Am I saying that this is necessarily a good thing? No. But let's face it, by experimenting on these criminals, they are in some way helping to better the world they wronged.

 

[imnot]

I would like to remark that Shirō Ishii got out of being punished for his War Crimes by selling his results to the US.

So the question if the United States want to sink to that level isn't realy accuarte. A more interesting question would be, what they did to justify such a purchase.

Maybe I am too harsh, after all World War II wasn't exactly moral high ground for anyone. But I sometimes have the feeling that the US tend to see themselves as the good guys and Hitler and Stalin as the bad guys.

But Hitler and Stalin Where bad guys!

OT: eh as long as it wast to wierd and creepy I dont see why not.

 

[FallenTraveler]

I suppose it depends, if it is someone who can be proven 100% guilty then maybe. But there have been plenty of people on death row who were wrongly charged. I wouldn't want it for an innocent caught in the game of police and lawyers.

 

[Ethan Asia]

Well.... why not? If the experiments are for the betterment of mankind...

If they've been proven to have done something worthy of capital punishment completely beyond doubt, then yes. As far as I'm concerned, they're just bodies while they're on death row.

 

[kasperbbs]

Only if they agree to it, they might be on deathrow, but spending their last days being tortured is pretty fucked up.

 

[Wintermoot]

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

not entirely if we would apply some morals (like no vivisections and only drug testing that has been tested on animals before) I would agree with it.

 

[relevantcore]

Well.... why not? If the experiments are for the betterment of mankind...

If they've been proven to have done something worthy of capital punishment completely beyond doubt, then yes. As far as I'm concerned, they're just bodies while they're on death row.

No, they're still humans with choices. Also, this would be every flavor of unethical, and sounds like the beginning of a dystopian society movie.

 

[kouriichi]

EDIT: OK, for the record, I'm not insisting we go out right now and take some of the people on the back of the line of death row, kicking and screaming, and inject them with a dozen diseases "For Science." Obviously, consents would have to be given, considerations would have to be made, and some laws would have to be changed. My point is they're not going anywhere, and appeals aside some death row inmates are simply sitting because the line is massive and they only go through so many injections a day. Again, they're going to be killed anyway, so why not give their deaths some meaning?

Dont worry bud.
It seems like you type something, and anyone who doesnt agree wants to bite your head off.

I can agree with you 100%. Just killing them doesn't do anything to help the community. The fact they got to get free meals, and a place to live at the expense of innocent people is bad enough. Now they get off the hook without giving anything back?

 

[teisjm]

How bout offering inmates, not just lifetime/deathrow, the chance to voluntarily participate in the experiments, and get paid for it. Money they could either get when they were released, or have sent to their famillies.

That way no-one would be forced, and inmates would have a chance to help support their famillies from behind bars, or have some funds when they got released, as to help them establish a legal way of life. And science would have volunteer guineapigs.