Despite having the largest prison population – both per capita and by sheer numbers – in the world, the US still unironically calls itself the “land of the free,” habitually lectures other nations about human rights, and holds itself up as a moral authority on the treatment of incarcerated human beings. This has held true even as the federal government has returned to executing prisoners with a vigor that suggests it’s making up for lost time.

The recently-scheduled execution of Lisa Montgomery should put the last, long-overdue nail in the coffin of the relentlessly hypocritical “moral authority” the US has long insisted on wielding over the rest of the world. The first female federal prisoner to be executed in nearly seven decades, loathsome as her crimes may be, is a symbol of the US’ disturbing enthusiasm for a punishment even its allies have largely discarded as barbaric.