Emanuel & Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania
Position:
Con to the question "Should the death penalty be allowed?"
Reasoning:
"Is it Ethical for Physicians to Administer Lethal Injections?.. An argument for technical expertise does not justify medicine’s acceptance of physician involvement in executions [...] The argument based on mercy for the doomed rests on two claims —that physicians have a general duty to condemned persons and that physician participation will not influence the overall ethical assessment of the practice of execution by the public. Neither is true. Physicians who participate... in executions in states that permit capital punishment for morally bankrupt reasons, even from motives of mercy toward the condemned... are complicit in the unethical killing of sometimes helpless, hapless, and vulnerable persons."
"Should Physicians Participate in Capital Punishment?" Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 2007
Experts
Individuals with MDs, JDs, PhDs, other relevant advanced degrees, corrections and government officials with significant involvement in, or related to, death penalty issues. [Note: Experts definition varies by site]
Involvement and Affiliations:
Emanuel & Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania, 1994-present
Director, Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania, 1994-present
Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics, University of Pennsylvania
Associate Professor, Bioethics, University of Minnesota, 1987-1994
Associate Professor, Bioethics, University of Pittsburgh, 1986
Former Associate Professor, Bioethics, Columbia University
Associate Director, Hastings Center, 1984-1987
Chair, National Cancer Institute Biobanking Ethics Working Group
Chair, Advisory Committee to the United Nations on Human Cloning
Chair, Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability, US Department of Health and Human Services
Member, Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illnesses
Member, Special Advisory Committee on Genetics and Gene Therapy, International Olympic Committee
Member, Ethics Committee, American Society of Gene Therapy
Recipient, McGovern Medal of the American Medical Writers Association
Person of the Year, USA Today, 2001
Named "One of the Fifty Most Influential People in American Health Care," Modern Health Care magazine
Education:
PhD, Philosophy of Science, Columbia University, 1979
