I'm strongly opposed to capital punishment, though not as passionately as a lot of "liberals".
Over the years I've read a series of articles about how the victims may suffer during execution, or how things can go wrong and get botched. Here was the latest to come to my attention:
https://apnews.com/article/death-penalty-alabama-nitrogen-hypoxia-3aa41ad4da3f719e9f06425798e1c6a5
It deals with the perils of a proposed new execution method which involves having the condemned breathe pure nitrogen.
What the articles never mention is that the medical technology exists to execute people with zero risk of getting botched or feeling pain. We routinely give the necessary painkillers to those with terminal cancer so that they do not suffer, and medical ethics allows giving a dose that is sure to eliminate the pain even as it becomes virtually certain that the medicines will kill them. The same technology could be used to execute people. There are probably a dozen equally effective variants.
The reason these methods are not used is the refusal of the medical profession to cooperate in carrying out executions -- to the point where those who do cooperate face professional sanctions. I believe I read that certain drug makers have prohibited the use of their products for carrying out executions. Any individual helping to carry out executions risks stigma from liberals who discover this. It reminds me to some extent of the perils that doctors who provide abortions face from passionately anti-abortion zealots, though I am not aware of any capital punishment collaborators fearing for their lives.
As a result, the ones carrying out the execution may understandably be "stressed out" -- at least one article mentioned this. And stressed out people are more likely to make mistakes.
A refusal to participate in any way in carrying out executions is morally defensible. Seeing that individual victims do not suffer is less important than the goal of doing everything they can to make capital punishment politically less appealing.
But it would seem far more honest to explain as part of the story that the danger arises not inherently from the technical problem of how to kill people but from the fact that those who could effortlessly solve those problems have chosen not to participate. Capital punishment proponents probably would cite this as a reason to discount stories of botched executions -- it's the fault of those anti-capital punishment elites, not an inherent problem with capital punishment. It's not a political argument those opposed to capital punishment would like to get into, but it's true. If you see the capital punishment question as a war, where the only goal is to prevail politically, this is the choice you would expect to see. If on the other hand you have the quaint view that issues should be discussed honestly with a goal of achieving understanding, it's a truth we would do better to discuss honestly.
For some historical context, it is interesting that the guillotine came into use in France in the late 18th century as part of this new idea that people being executed should not be made to suffer, but the desire was simply to end their lives. Before that time, "breaking on the wheel" was a common method. And it interests me today that no matter how much some group reviles a class of criminals, no one seriously argues for torture, and especially not public torture. This seems like a lasting shift in values that came with the Enlightenment that is not in danger of being reversed (unlike much of the rest of it).
