Abstract

It is hard to imagine two precepts that enjoy more uniform support among the international medical community than the ethical prohibitions against physician participation in capital punishment and torture. Yet the two articles in this issue of the Hastings Center Report challenge these sacred assumptions, arguing that the ethics of these issues are more complicated than they may seem, and that each deserves more nuanced consideration than it has received in the past.I have personally written in opposition to the participation of physicians in capital punishment, and while I continue to support this view, I acknowledge that the arguments I used depended to some extent upon the consensus statements of medical ..