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J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2003;126:2107-2108
© 2003 The American Association for Thoracic Surgery

Letter to the editor

Medical resources and capital punishment

Department of Cardiothoracic/Vascular Surgery, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

To the Editor:

The editorial in the March 2003 issue of the Journal on heart transplantation for convicted felons¹ made interesting reading. McKneally and Sade agreed that human life should be preserved without question.

A similar dilemma confronted me once, when a prisoner awaiting death sentence was brought in for a valve replacement while his application for mercy was being considered. Irrespective of his clinical status, he would later be hanged to death. The dilemma was whether we were doing the right thing in replacing the valve so that he could face his death sentence soon. Would it have been preferable to reserve these resources for someone whose death was not so imminent? In any case, we replaced his aortic valve. The patient is now alive 6 years after the operation, and his death sentence has been commuted to life imprisonment. He is brought for regular follow-up and has rehabilitated himself by performing social work within the prison walls. This case persuaded me to research the law and resulted in a publication in the Journal of Indian Law Institute.² The subject was capital punishment and medical science.

In the case referred to in the editorial, it appears that medical professionals and legal professionals can come together and seek an alternative where valuable human resource is not wasted in the hope of retribution. I am referring to the large number of prisoners waiting a death sentence in US prisons. They could be potential organ donors for the community. With the assistance of the medical profession, each prisoner who is to be executed can provide organs for 8 to 10 patients.

This would certainly appeal to society at large. The article published in the Journal of Indian Law Institute² has interested the law commission in India, which is considering this suggestion. However, capital punishment itself is rarely given out in Indian courts. Perhaps this thought may be worth a closer look in your community, where the number of convicts on death row is large.

	References

Top References

 

1. McKneally MF, Sade RM. The prisoner dilemma: should convicted felons have the same access to heart transplantation as ordinary citizens? Opposing views. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2003;125:451–453[Free Full Text]
   
2. Sampath Kumar A. Capital punishment and medical sciences. J Ind Law Inst. 1997;39:386–391
   

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