Let’s pretend that the Islamic Republic of Iran had undertaken to execute a 50-year-old woman for a crime committed when she was an 18-year-old.

Let’s say the crime was murdering a fellow female student. Let’s also say that the woman slated for execution had suffered rape and sexual abuse since she was a toddler and had been diagnosed with mental illness, later admitting: “It took me numerous years to even realise the gravity of what I’d done.”

A fair amount of international uproar would presumably ensue, alleging Iran’s barbarity in choosing to kill a woman with such a troubled past. The United States would no doubt be at the helm of the criticism.

And yet no such uproar has transpired since Wednesday’s attempted execution in the US state of Tennessee of 50-year-old Christa Pike, to whom all of the above details pertain in reality.

Pike was set to be the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1820 – lest anyone assume US society was advancing rather than regressing. However, the executioners failed in their task, and, when Pike remained alive after being injected with all manner of lethal drugs, the operation was called off and she was rushed to hospital.

Fearing the pain that would attend death by injection, Pike had initially requested to be killed by........

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