"We wouldn’t just go drown someone or burn someone at the stake. But if midazolam is not capable of maintaining that insensate state, we may well be producing the same feeling in the person being executed."

Said lawprof Maria Kolar, quoted in "This Sedative Is Now a Go-To Drug for Executions. But Does It Work? A legal battle in Oklahoma over whether prisoners feel severe pain after being given the sedative, midazolam, will determine whether its use is constitutional" (NYT).

A highly rated comment over there: "Please explain to me why there can be painless, peaceful assisted suicide and yet our prison system is totally inept at execution. Of course, this barbaric act of execution should never be a part of our society."

I thought that was interesting because it seems to accept assisted suicide while putting the death penalty beyond the pale. Traditionally, it was the death penalty that was accepted and suicide that was beyond the pale.

And if the question is the possibility that pain is experienced — there's no intent to inflict pain but it's possible that pain is felt — then one ought to face the comparison to abortion. Do those who care about the possibility of pain in the context of execution support the effort to cut off access to abortion at the point where it is possible that the unborn feels pain?