Death By State

Now that the drugs used for lethal injections have become so difficult to obtain several states are considering other, “humane,” ways to execute criminals. Unfortunately, I have learned far more about death than I ever wanted to know. In less than a year my brother and my mother have died while on home hospice care (one from cancer and the other from congestive heart failure). I also had to have the vet euthanize my old dog. The one thing I learned from all of this is that although some ways of dying are worse than others, there is no good way to die. In spite of our best pharmaceuticals, death  always involves some pain and suffering! Even euthanasia is a matter of temporarily inflicting pain to end prolonged pain. My point is that there is no such thing as a humane execution! I suppose the question of whether there is such a thing as a just execution is debatable.