I’m an atheist. But seriously?
Yes, that is seriously what the prisoners being force-fed believe.
No, I mean are you seriously going to suggest that the US disallow them their beliefs? Personally, I find most religious beliefs to be delusional, but hey. . .First Ammendment, etc?
Neither I nor the courts have ever understood the First Amendment to protect the right of a prisoner to commit suicide.
OK, so you are cool with force-feeding prisoners via nasogastric tube. Who performs the procedure? The medical community has asserted it is against their ethics. Who does it? Guards? Cafeteria workers?
We should just let these people go
Note that once a prisoner loses consciousness, he has presumably lost the capability to make an informed judgment to continue the hunger strike. The ethical question for the physician seems more complicated at that point.
Where?
No.
YES, competent patients are allowed to refuse life saving medical treatments. Even if they present with acute appendicitis and will surly die without treatment - they are allowed to refuse. Medical procedures are never supposed to be performed on a patient without consent, even if it is in their best interests. It’s the difference between surgery and assault. In the case of suicide, intervention is justified because of the whole sound mind/competency argument. (However, more and more this is getting murkier, because there is increasing evidence that patients may be of sound mind and still want to die)
Force feeding of prisoners is an ethical gray area and there is compelling arguments on both sides of the debate. Prisoners are allowed to refuse medical treatment, they are not stripped of their human rights (at least in US prisons, housing US citizens, Gitmo is a whole 'nother can of worms). My understanding, according to many US court precedents the force feeding of prison inmates is warranted if used to ‘maintain safety and order in the prison’.
Pentagon warned against use of physicians in forced feeding
And currently, California prison inmates are hunger striking (again) to protest “solitary confinement and call for improved prison conditions. The strike, involving roughly two-thirds of the state’s prisons, is one of the largest in California history.”
California Hunger Strike Raises Issue of Force-Feeding on U.S. Soil
Who’s doing it now?
Yeah, definitely not so cut and dry. Patient consent doesn’t become irrelevant once they lose consciousness. Physicians can’t perform any procedure they consider in the ‘patient’s best interest’ just because a patient is unconscious or under anesthesia. Particularly when a patient has explicitly expressed their intent prior to losing consciousness and they were of sound mind when they did so. Unlike an unconscious patient presenting at the emergency room, the hunger striking patient’s intent is known.
This is the whole premise of living wills, advance directives, DNRs, etc, - so that people had the opportunity to state their intent prior to becoming incapacitated. It doesn’t just go out the window once they are incapacitated.
It seems non-physician medical staff under the supervision of a physician.
From what I’ve read, “Navy medical staff” (nurses).
Oh, so an 18 year old medic is being ordered to force-feed detainees against their will. Ordered and supervised by an officer who is also a Dr.
We’re setting those kids up for as much PTSD as the ones who are actual trigger pullers. Possibly more.
Agreed. It is a weasel way out. Oversight is still active participation.
Into the US, with apologies about their detainment. Hell, smuggle them into the country and give them a fake identity. Its enough, really.
When pneumonia, pneumothorax, or some other sequela occurs and leads to death they will feel even worse.
Who should do that?
Obama?
I voted for the guy (twice); in large part due to his promise to close Guantanamo, and in no lesser part due to his promise to not use the Federal government to prosecute cannabis users in states that had legalized the drug.
I feel fucked over.