by Matt Barr

First, do no stupid stuff

Two anesthesiologists refuse to participate in the execution of a man convicted of raping a 17-year-old girl (she must have been a virgin) because a federal court (the U.S. Court of Unintended Consequences for the Ninth Circuit) ordered them to "intervene" if Michael Angelo Morales' woke up or experienced pain. This raises ethical concerns, according to the unnamed anesthesiologists, the American Medical Association, the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the California Medical Association.

In a wholly unrelated matter, the AMA in June passed a resolution "to protect patients' ability to get legally prescribed prescriptions filled without obstruction by pharmacists' conscientious objection to certain medications," by which we mean birth control.

I don't have any trouble believing the American Medical Association is more keen to protect anesthesiologists' -- their members' -- right to conscientiously object to something than with pharmacists', but it might be less weaselly if they said so, instead of gravely intoning about ethical concerns and blabedy blah. The AMA decides what's ethical, not the member doctors or other health care providers; and we need courts and policies and resolutions to codify and enforce these ethics, not rational actors in a free market. Just cuz.

By all means, unnamed anesthesiologists, refuse to participate in the lawful execution of a rapist and murderer. You, though, AMA, you pick a lane. Should health care providers be allowed to decide whether or not to participate in non-emergency medical care? It's a simple question, even if it doesn't let you decide which medical care is "unethical" instead of the professionals to whose ethical judgment you say we should defer.

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