The recent article in the Student BMJ exploring doctors and capital punishment was an eye opener into an ethical dilemma that doctors in particular countries are immersed in. It is an issue we cannot blame for being unaware of. Practising in a country were legal execution has been outlawed means that is one less moral and ethical quandry for practitioners to face, but it has been an issue that has played on my mind ever since reading the article. And I cannot decide on which side of the fence I stand. On the one hand I have to ask, is it ethically right for a doctor - someone who preserves the sanctity of life - to be a tool leading to its termination. Conversely, is it better for a trained medical professional to be present to ensure the most humane of executions take place - an oxymoron if ever I saw one!

As with many medical issues, the political strings that are attached to capitol punishment springboard physicians into the echelons of public scrutiny that perhaps they should not be placed in. Politicians want to be seen to come down hard on criminals, and what better deterant to crime than facing ones own mortality. But this puts pressure on doctors to fulfill the politicians promise of swift and decisive justice.

It is the humane side of me that would like to think that those who face their own death are supported by medical professionals who make their passing more comfortable. But is is the inhumane side of me that argues that those who are faced with legal execution have deservedly lost their rights to comfort. It is a hard dilemma to adequately put in words. And I think that I am falling for the side of humanity - when an individual has borken the well defined laws of society to an extent that they have paid with their life, it seems fitting to ensure that they pass away with dignity and in some form of comfort.

I believe the large majority of us would agree that if we ignore the necessary ethical resposibility we have to ensure that criminals who face death pass with dignity, we only become as low as those who have committed the crime in the first place. A line has to be drawn past which we become what we are trying to fight, and as hard as it may be at times we have to retain the empathy which makes us human, and for that reason I believe that doctors should be involved in legal execution - but they should not be shunned by a society seeking justice for doing so.