Professional
association policies

APC’s position statement discourages its members from participating in the preparation, dispensing or distribution of compounded medications for use in executions. It notes that states turned to compounded preparations only after manufacturers stopped selling the traditionally used products for this purpose, and frames compounding as a profession of healing and care centered on individual patients.

Policy adopted by the APhA House of Delegates discourages pharmacist participation in executions, on the basis that such activity is fundamentally at odds with pharmacists’ role as providers of healthcare on the patient care team. The Association noted that the move brought it into line with the AMA, the American Nurses Association and the American Board of Anesthesiology.

Section 1(4) of the Principles of Medical Ethics as applied to psychiatry states: “A psychiatrist should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution.” The APA’s Commentary on Ethics in Practice (2015; Topic 3.4.9) extends this to any role that would facilitate, implement, develop or monitor execution techniques.

The AMA Code treats an individual’s view of capital punishment as a personal moral matter — but holds that, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, a physician must not participate in a legally authorized execution. The AMA’s definition of what counts as participation is the benchmark most other American associations adopt.

ANA’s position statement opposes both capital punishment and nurse participation in capital punishment, whether direct or indirect, as contrary to the fundamental goals and ethical traditions of nursing. The position is grounded in the Code of Ethics for Nurses (2015) — including its social-justice provisions — and aligns with the International Council of Nurses’ view of the death penalty as cruel, inhuman and unacceptable.

Reaffirming its 1998 Code of Ethics, the College requires that members “not be involved in any aspect of execution of the death penalty.” Because incarcerated people are directly and clearly correctional physicians’ patients, ACCP describes the ethical imperative as the strongest of any specialty — extending to the direct or indirect supervision of other members of the healthcare team, and endorsing the AMA’s three-part definition of participation.

ASA’s statement on physician non-participation observes that lethal injection has wrongly associated capital punishment with the practice of medicine, and with anesthesiology in particular. Although the method mimics certain technical aspects of anesthesia, execution in any form is not the practice of medicine. The Society concurs with the AMA’s position and strongly discourages anesthesiologists from taking part.

The certifying board has written the AMA’s capital-punishment opinion into its Professional Standing policy: since February 2010, an anesthesiologist who takes part in a lethal-injection execution can have board certification revoked. The ABA takes no position on the death penalty itself — its diplomates, like all citizens, hold differing views — but it is unequivocal that “Anesthesiologists are healers, not executioners.”

APHA policy reaffirms its 1994 collaborative statement to professional societies and to state licensing and discipline boards: health-professional participation in executions or pre-execution procedures is a serious violation of ethical codes, and should be grounds for active disciplinary proceedings — up to expulsion from society membership and license revocation.

The ACP Ethics Manual is blunt: “Participation by physicians in the execution of prisoners except to certify death is unethical.” The same passage obliges physicians to refuse any part in torture or other abuses of human rights — and to speak out against them.

ACHSA’s Statement of Ethics bars correctional health professionals from involvement in any aspect of execution of the death penalty — the same absolute standard that the American College of Correctional Physicians reaffirmed in 2014.

NAEMT’s position statement is strongly opposed to participation in capital punishment by any EMT, paramedic or other emergency medical practitioner, describing such participation as contrary to the fundamental goals and ethical obligations of emergency medical services.

Standing policy HX-4100.1.9, first adopted in 1984 and amended and reaffirmed repeatedly since, holds that a PA, as a member of a health-care profession, should not participate in an execution.

In an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Bucklew v. Precythe, the trade body for generic and biosimilar medicines took no position on capital punishment itself — but said its members strongly oppose the use of their medicines to carry out executions. Many member companies bar such sales outright, directly or through their distributors, and AAM argued that using drugs approved and studied to treat illness in order to kill contradicts their therapeutic purpose and the FDA approval process behind them.

AOA policy on executions in capital cases, first adopted in 1995 and reaffirmed since, deems it an unethical act for any osteopathic physician to deliver — or to be required to deliver — a lethal injection for the purpose of execution.

ArMA backs the AMA position and opposes any state law, rule or regulation that would enable or require physician participation in executions — carving out only the legal determination and certification of death.

Objecting to proposed regulations that would have required physician participation in lethal injections, CMA argued that capital punishment, whatever its delivery method, is not a medical task: it requires no medical skill, and lending a physician’s skills to it breaches one of the profession’s most important ethical boundaries and threatens the public trust at the heart of the physician–patient relationship.

Colorado’s policy tracks the AMA opinion: a physician, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life, should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution — and it adopts the AMA’s three-part definition of participation, from directly causing death to assisting, supervising or automatically triggering an execution.

On its ethics committee’s recommendation, the Society’s board aligned Delaware policy with the AMA opinion opposing physician participation in executions (H-140.898), describing such participation as a clear violation of medical ethics codes.

FMA supports the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs position in full: opinions on capital punishment are personal and moral, but a physician dedicated to preserving life should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution. Determining or certifying death, as provided by law, remains permitted.

Georgia’s policy, on the books since 1983 and reaffirmed as recently as 2014, holds that the state should not require physicians in implementing the death penalty — particularly by lethal injection — because a physician’s primary responsibility is to sustain and prolong life.

KMA notes that the AMA’s ethical opinions have been adopted by the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure as conditions of licensure — making physician participation in executions, beyond certifying a death already declared by someone else, a serious ethics violation with direct licensing consequences.

The Society adopts the AMA’s 2016 capital-punishment opinion nearly verbatim, excluding only its provision on organ donation by prisoners: a physician, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, must not participate in a legally authorized execution.

NSMA policy, reaffirmed in 2001, 2009 and 2015, states that physicians should not actively participate in executing prisoners.

By resolution, the Society joined the AMA in strong opposition to physician-assisted executions.

MSSNY policy holds that a physician should not be a participant in a state execution, and spells out an AMA-style three-category test for what counts as participation — from any action that would directly or automatically cause an execution to be carried out, to assisting, supervising or contributing to another person’s ability to cause the death of the condemned.

Following litigation, the Board states it will not take disciplinary action against a physician for participation in an execution — but it continues to maintain, as a matter of professional ethics, that such participation is a departure from the ethics of the medical profession, citing the AMA’s opinion as an accurate statement of those ethics.

Oregon’s policy mirrors the AMA’s: an individual’s opinion on capital punishment is a personal moral decision, but a physician dedicated to preserving life should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution. Making a determination or certification of death, as provided by law, is allowed.

TMA policy shields corrections physicians from compulsion: doctors employed by or contracted to the corrections department cannot be required to attend or participate in executions as a condition of that work — with participation defined to include not only preparing the condemned and the execution mechanism, but also supervising non-physician personnel. Certifying death is excluded.

WSMA supports the physician as a member of a profession dedicated to the preservation of life where there is hope of doing so, and on that basis discourages participation in legally authorized executions.

The Society treats views on the death penalty as a personal moral matter — but opposes any legislation or policy that would require a physician to assist in, witness or attend an execution.

The WMA resolution affirms that it is unethical for physicians to participate in capital punishment in any way — at any step of the process, including its planning and the instruction or training of executioners. Grounding the position in the Declaration of Geneva’s pledge of the utmost respect for human life, it directs national medical associations to advise their physicians accordingly and to lobby governments against any physician involvement.

Marking World Day Against the Death Penalty, ICN affirmed that nurses should play no voluntary role in any deliberate infliction of physical or mental suffering, and should not take part, either directly or indirectly, in preparing for or carrying out executions — calling anything else a clear violation of nursing’s ethical code of practice.

The WPA’s prison public-health position statement prohibits healthcare workers from involvement in torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment — and states that this expressly includes the administration of lethal injections as part of a death sentence.