[javajosh]

I say this as an opponent of the death penalty, there is nothing intrinsically difficult about killing someone, and I would guess that the ways a person can legally be killed have grown smaller and smaller over time by opponents of the practice. This is identical to the strategy used by anti-abortion advocates who chip away at access and timing and so on, and it's ethically questionable IMO.

[roywiggins]

There's absolutely nothing stopping states from reinstituting the firing squad: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/05/664548834/tennessee-death-row...

The reason why states can't source drugs to use them for killing is because, surprise, the corporations that manufacture them refuse to sell them for that purpose.

[pmiller2]

The corporations refuse because they’re afraid of the PR backlash. Let’s not hide the fact that it’s all about money.

[nulbyte]

Fair enough, but that doesn't negate their refusal to sell them for that purpose. They refuse to sell them for that purpose because they know the state will pay far less than they would otherwise lose from public scrutiny. I'm okay with that.

[pmiller2]

It doesn’t negate it, but it does taint it. You know that if they thought the calculation would come out the other way and they’d make money, they’d be actively soliciting prisons to buy their drugs for executions.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

Actually, it's simply illegal for companies in the EU to export drugs for use in executions.

[pmiller2]

Yeah, and corporations never do illegal things for profit in the EU, either.

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

Except this is unlikely to be a big business opportunity, plus chances are someone would notice (executions in the US aren't exactly secret), so I would be pretty surprised if big pharma companies would try to circumvent this.

[Fjolsvith]

The condemned convict might get lead poisoning.

[SamBam]

No, the two strategies differ in whether they are in concordance with a constitutional right or against a constitutional right (to take a strictly legalistic view).

Limiting access to abortion is counter to the Supreme Court's decision that abortion is a right.

Limiting the methods of execution is to prevent undue suffering, which violates the constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment.

[deogeo]

> No, the two strategies differ

That "No" is unwarranted - the strategies differ in the way you say, but they coincide in the way the post your responded to says.

[SamBam]

The "no" was responding to the suggestion that there is a moral equivalency to the two scenarios, and I was disagreeing that there is one.

[javajosh]

There is a moral equivalence between the method, not the goal.

[SamBam]

That makes no sense. Morality applies to the goal (or the result, including side-effects, which may or may not have been the goal).

If I scratch you to relieve an itch you can't reach, or I scratch you to violently gouge out your eyes, it's a meaningless comment to say "There's a moral equivalence to the method."

The only "equivalence" between the two original scenarios is that they both involve the verb "limiting," but there is no "moral equivalence" that automatically applies to any action using that verb. Or is there a "moral equivalence" between the laws to limit abortion and my attempts to limit my kid's screentime?

Are you just arguing for the sake of arguing?