Should Prisoners be Experimented on?
Whether human experimentation to test clinical pharmaceuticals is right or wrong is not the question, because all pharmaceutical drugs must be tested on human beings. It is the ethics of human experimentation that triggers debate and controversy. Cases such as the Nazi Medical Experiments are generally agreed to have been unethical because thousands of concentration camp prisoners were harshly experimented on without consent. The Holocaust is sensitive history because of the mass killings of 11 million people and the grounds of conviction of the people in concentration camps. However, whether prisoners should be used for medical experiments is still a debate.
In the debate about whether prisoners should be used for medical experiments, the word prisoner is defined “as those who are sentenced to the death penalty in the United States.” Some people believe that prisoners have a financial and moral debt to society; therefore, should be contributing to medical research by being experimented on. The argument further asserts that it costs more money to “execute a person than to imprison them for life”; in fact, Donald McCartin, a former California jurist, said that it is “10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive.”
Those who are opposed to prisoners being used for medical experiments argue that the “justice systems can be flawed” and therefore wrongly convict people who will then go through unnecessary medical experimentation. The argument against using prisoners for human experimentation assert that the reason behind the opposition “isn’t a debate about medicine and vaccine, but about justice and rights.” In response to the argument that it costs more money to execute a prisoner than imprison them for life, those who are opposed state that “a more topical debate to release the financial restrain of the prison system might be to abolish the capital punishment so that we save taxpayers’ money by just having life-long imprisonment.”
According to a “biomedical ethicist at the University of Birmingham in England,” conducting medical research on prisoners “doesn’t have to be exploitative or damaging, even though history can demonstrate a long and tragic list of exactly that happening time and time again.” People who oppose reiterate the fact that even if prisoners give their consent to participate in medical experimentation--what supporters see as a public good--there may still be some coercion.
In the debate about whether prisoners should be used for medical experiments, the word prisoner is defined “as those who are sentenced to the death penalty in the United States.” Some people believe that prisoners have a financial and moral debt to society; therefore, should be contributing to medical research by being experimented on. The argument further asserts that it costs more money to “execute a person than to imprison them for life”; in fact, Donald McCartin, a former California jurist, said that it is “10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive.”
Those who are opposed to prisoners being used for medical experiments argue that the “justice systems can be flawed” and therefore wrongly convict people who will then go through unnecessary medical experimentation. The argument against using prisoners for human experimentation assert that the reason behind the opposition “isn’t a debate about medicine and vaccine, but about justice and rights.” In response to the argument that it costs more money to execute a prisoner than imprison them for life, those who are opposed state that “a more topical debate to release the financial restrain of the prison system might be to abolish the capital punishment so that we save taxpayers’ money by just having life-long imprisonment.”
According to a “biomedical ethicist at the University of Birmingham in England,” conducting medical research on prisoners “doesn’t have to be exploitative or damaging, even though history can demonstrate a long and tragic list of exactly that happening time and time again.” People who oppose reiterate the fact that even if prisoners give their consent to participate in medical experimentation--what supporters see as a public good--there may still be some coercion.
Nazi Medical Experiments. (2014, June 20). Retrieved April 21, 2015, from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005168
Prisoners Should Be Used For Medical Experiments Without Consent. (n.d.). Retrieved April 22, 2015, from http://debatewise.org/debates/982-prisoners-should-be-used-for-medical-experiments-without-consent/
Hastings, D. (2009, March 8). To execute or not: A question of cost? - USATODAY.com. Retrieved May 1, 2015, from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-03-07-exepensive-to-execute_N.htm
Maron, D. (2014, July 3). Should Prisoners Be Used in Medical Experiments? Retrieved April 22, 2015, from http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=30825
Prisoners Should Be Used For Medical Experiments Without Consent. (n.d.). Retrieved April 22, 2015, from http://debatewise.org/debates/982-prisoners-should-be-used-for-medical-experiments-without-consent/
Hastings, D. (2009, March 8). To execute or not: A question of cost? - USATODAY.com. Retrieved May 1, 2015, from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-03-07-exepensive-to-execute_N.htm
Maron, D. (2014, July 3). Should Prisoners Be Used in Medical Experiments? Retrieved April 22, 2015, from http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=30825