Professor Desmond O'Neill:

A cynic might say this is completely contrary to the principles of the medical profession, that the medical professionals should be let do what they want. Ultimately, however, that is to turn our backs on what is a reservoir of human suffering that we need to address proactively. It is hard to see how health care professions cannot be involved in this. We have an ethical imperative to be involved. Just as doctors should have had in National Socialist Germany and as Swedish doctors have, we have an ethical imperative to say "No, this is not how to care for and protect people and it is not how to alleviate suffering." The answer is that this is something from which we cannot or should not walk away. Sadly, within any profession, outside or inside, one will always find some people who will do things about which we would be unhappy. I refer to Atul Gawande's magnificent paper in the New England Journal of Medicineon otherwise decent doctors who find themselves, under the pressure about which the Deputy is talking, engaging with executions in US prisons. That should be a sentinel paper for people to read because Atul Gawande is certainly seen as a very helpful moral compass in that regard.