On this page you'll find:

Talking points about a moratorium and the medical establishment
how to contact the AMA

A quick email could make a huge difference! Please act before June 17, and urge others to do the same!

Help get a moratorium resolution passed by the AMA!

The American Medical Association will consider a resolution calling for a moratorium on executions at their next meeting of the House of Delegates in mid-June! This would be a huge step forward for the moratorium movement, but it will be a difficult struggle given the conservative nature of the AMA.

The committee considering the resolution needs to hear from as many people as possible to ensure that their recommendation to the full House is favorable--please write letters in support of the resolution ASAP! Letters can come from both medical professionals and the general public, and may be brief (simply urging the AMA to adopt the resolution), or may be longer and include some of the talking points below.

Send letters to:

William J. Mangold, Jr., M.D., Chairman
c/o Ms. Jackie Darrah, Secretary
Reference Committee on Constitution & Bylaws
515 North State Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610

or email to: jackie_darrah@ama-assn.org

Jackie Darrah has said that she will make sure that every member of the Committee receives a copy of any e-mail that she receives. Let's flood 'em!

For more information on moratorium or the resolution, please contact Shari at sharis@quixote.org.

Some quick points you can include in your letters:

The following medical organizations have passed resolutions calling for a moratorium on executions: the American Psychiatric Association, the Medical Society of the State of New York, the American Association for Social Psychiatry and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.
The Principles of Medical Ethics' prohibit physician participation in legally authorized executions; however, numerous jurisdictions require involvement of physicians in carrying out the death penalty.
Physician and psychiatrist participation in executions include examinations to determine the competency of death row inmates to be executed, and the treatment of seriously mentally ill death row inmates, with the foreseeable purpose to restore their competency to be executed.
The American Bar Association called for a moratorium on capital punishment in the United States in 1997 concluding that the administration of the death penalty is "a haphazard maze of unfair practices with no internal consistency." Issues raised in the ABA resolution included:

the racially discriminatory application of the death penalty
the grossly inadequate legal representation of low-income defendants
the restrictions on appeals to the federal courts, even in cases where new evidence is presented that points to the innocence of the condemned prisoner.