Sunday, February 08, 2009

Capital Punishment, yes but no Hangman please

A couple of days ago, I met this physician and we began discussing terrorists, deterrents and Afzal Guru.

He had an unique (repulsive, you might say) alternative to the hangman or the Fasi (or the electric chair, if you will) . He suggested that the convict ( I was about to say 'the capital punishment awardee') be killed so that the body is useful to the rest of humankind.

For instance, healthy convicts may be killed such that their eyes, liver and kidneys are transplanted, the dead body passed on to medical colleges for study purposes.

Sounds very interesting.
Let me play the Devil's Advocate.
What about the dignity of the dead ? What about possible human rights violation ?
Well, organ donation is not known to be undignified. Is it ? It is possible that such donation may be without the consent of the convict, but what-the-hell, the capital punishment probably was not !

As to the exact mode of killing, we did not discuss that, but a physician would know how to effect the same at any degree of pain or painlessness.

After I finished writing this, I googled. There have been other thinkers on the subject here.

No comments:

How did you like the post ?