# Should the navy nurse who refused to force feed Guantanamo prisoners be discharged? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 23, 2014, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447 "2014-11-23T23:46:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/21 "2014-11-24T03:20:00Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Forced feeding has been used as a form of torture for over a century at least. But pointedly, it was never recognized as such by the WMA or AMA until 2005. Like I said, I think this was a political gesture aimed at a particular situation rather than a general practice. I have no problem with their belief. I’m on record as saying the Guantanamo detainees should be released. But saying I agree with their political position on this issue doesn’t mean I agree with the principle of politicizing the practice of medicine. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/22 "2014-11-24T03:31:44Z")
> [@DinoR](#): > > The WMA stance is not international law. At best it’s a mitigating or extenuating circumstance for a commander or court martial to consider when assigning punishment if judicial action is pursued. It can also be considered by a separation board in determining whether to separate and how to characterize the discharge. It can inform governments on the best ways to implement accords. It could have effects beyond merely advisory. A medical professional could lose his or her license for defying what the AMA or WMA defines as reasonable standards. Just as the armed forces can take away this woman’s military career for refusing to comply with military orders, the state nursing board can take away this woman’s medical career for refusing to comply with ANA standards. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/23 "2014-11-24T03:43:50Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But pointedly, it was never recognized as such by the WMA or AMA until 2005. Like I said, I think this was a political gesture aimed at a particular situation rather than a general practice. Well, it depends on what you mean by “political gesture”. The AMA doesn’t need a position on force-feeding unless and until its members are in a position where they are being invited to assist in force-feeding sufficiently often to require an institutional response. That situation had arisen in 2005. Any response by the AMA - including a decision to do nothing, or to affirm the legitimacy of force-feeding - would be seen as “political” since the circumstances that call for a response are themselves political, but I don’t see that that in any way invalidates or devalues the AMA position. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/24 "2014-11-24T03:54:49Z")
What does the AMA say about allowing someone to kill himself while in custody? What is the military supposed to do once this prisoner becomes unconscious due to hunger? ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/25 "2014-11-24T04:08:36Z")
Realized I should have included a disclaimer. My opinions are strictly my own. Largely it was understanding of the current UCMJ issues as opposed to opinion anyway… and IANAL. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/26 "2014-11-24T04:21:17Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > What does the AMA say about allowing someone to kill himself while in custody? What is the military supposed to do once this prisoner becomes unconscious due to hunger? Surely if the prisoner is incapacitated, the right to make medical decisions on his behalf passes to his next of kin? ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/27 "2014-11-24T04:22:37Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Pharmacists who refuse abortion to a woman are going against the will of the patient. A nurse who refuses to force feed a torture victim is _complying_ with the will of the patent. They are the opposite situation, not the same one. Yes, this. It was taught, and repeated, ad nauseum, in nursing school that a competent patient has the right to refuse any and all procedures. And not only can I lose my nursing license for doing a procedure against their will, but I can be charged with assault (if I threaten to do it) and battery (if I touch a patient to do it.) So for me, this is a clear cut case of nursing ethics \*and \*the law being in favor of the nurse refusing. On the other hand, legally speaking, aren’t prisoners considered under the custody of the state, like a school acting in loco parentis for a minor? That is, a Type I diabetic prisoner will be forced to take his insulin in most (all?) prisons, even if he doesn’t want to. Their legal right to informed refusal is limited when it is a refusal that will be fatal as a result. It’s just one more right they lose when they are sentenced, like the right to wear the clothing they want or eat the food they like. So when the prison officials make a determination against the patient’s wishes, we have a clear conflict between ethics+law and law. In my universe, that means I break the law and take the consequences. On the third hand, this guy hasn’t actually been charged and found guilty on anything has he? Isn’t that the whole controversy about the prisoners at Gitmo? I admit, I’m a little fuzzy on that point. But if he hasn’t been found guilty and sentenced, then has he lost those rights (yet)? If he has lost his right to informed refusal, then it means we’re back to my professional ethics+law on a&b being on conflict with the law in favor of forced treatment. Court martial me. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/28 "2014-11-24T04:31:56Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Surely if the prisoner is incapacitated, the right to make medical decisions on his behalf passes to his next of kin? Does it? Or does it pass to the prison authorities? ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/29 "2014-11-24T04:57:05Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Well, it depends on what you mean by “political gesture”. The AMA doesn’t need a position on force-feeding unless and until its members are in a position where they are being invited to assist in force-feeding sufficiently often to require an institutional response. That situation had arisen in 2005. Any response by the AMA - including a decision to do nothing, or to affirm the legitimacy of force-feeding - would be seen as “political” since the circumstances that call for a response are themselves political, but I don’t see that that in any way invalidates or devalues the AMA position. [Here](http://www.academia.edu/1068611/The_Ethics_and_Politics_of_Force-Feeding_Terror_Suspects_in_West_German_Prisons_2012_) is a little history of the treatment of hunger strikers. The issue has been around since at least the IRA and Red Army Faction hunger strikes in the early 80s. Many doctors and medical organizations have always resisted the practice as to a competent person (the situation is murkier for an anorexia nervosa patient). The WMA issued a statement in 1982 that barred “artificial feeding” but did not refer specifically to forced feeding. The 2006 clarification was clearly in response to hunger strikes at Gitmo. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > What does the AMA say about allowing someone to kill himself while in custody? What is the military supposed to do once this prisoner becomes unconscious due to hunger? According to the article linked above, the WMA permits artificial feeding after the patient becomes unconscious, unless the patient has left prior instructions forbidding it. Also, any such instructions may be disregarded if they were the coercive product of peer pressure by other prisoners. Basically, in such situations, the feeding is artificial but no longer forced. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/30 "2014-11-24T05:31:46Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > [Here](http://www.academia.edu/1068611/The_Ethics_and_Politics_of_Force-Feeding_Terror_Suspects_in_West_German_Prisons_2012_) is a little history of the treatment of hunger strikers. The issue has been around since at least the IRA and Red Army Faction hunger strikes in the early 80s. Much longer than that; it was used as a torture technique against suffragettes for example. So we’re talking at least back to the late 1800s. ---
**Author:** ![btthegreat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f4b2a3/32.png) [@btthegreat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/btthegreat)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/31 "2014-11-24T05:33:33Z")
> [@btthegreat](#): > > So do a few others. Here is the stance of the World Medical Association [http://www.wma.net/en/40news/20archives/2006/2006\_10/](http://www.wma.net/en/40news/20archives/2006/2006_10/) "At its annual General Assembly in Sun City, South Africa, the WMA amended its guidance to physicians on the management of hunger strikers to make it absolutely clear that force feeding constitutes a form of inhuman and degrading treatment. > > The new guidance in the revised Declaration of Malta, clarifying existing WMA policy, says that respect for patient autonomy must be weighed against medical interventions, which may or may not be in the hunger striker’s best interests. The final decision to intervene must take into account the hunger striker’s informed decision and must lie with the physician and not with any non medical authority. > > Dr Otmar Kloiber, secretary general of the WMA, said: > > This new guidance makes it absolutely clear that physicians should never be used to break hunger strikes through acts such as force feeding. > The clarification was necessary because there had been erroneous interpretations of the Declaration, making it seem to allow force feeding in the best interests of the patient, even when he had expressed wishes to the contrary. This interpretation appeared to contradict another WMA policy, the Declaration of Tokyo, which specifically stipulates that prisoners on hunger strike who have made an informed refusal of food shall not be artificially fed. > In clarifying this policy, delegates at the WMA Assembly emphasized that doctors working in prisons or the armed forces have exactly the same ethical obligations when treating prisoners as they do when caring for other autonomous patients." > here is the stance of the international Red Cross. > "…Red Cross investigators have visited the Guantanamo Bay detention facility during the hunger strikes, but Maurer refused to provide details, claiming the findings are confidential. But he did state that the ICRC and other international medical groups believe detainees should have the freedom to choose their own fate, and not be forced to endure painful force-feeding. > [http://rt-tv.f29hgb.ru/usa/red-cross-guantanamo-maurer-770/](http://rt-tv.f29hgb.ru/usa/red-cross-guantanamo-maurer-770/) > > Here is the AMA letter to Chuck Hagel [https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/694196/hunger-strikers-letter-04-25-13.pdf](https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/694196/hunger-strikers-letter-04-25-13.pdf) > > And here is the stance of the UN office of Human Rights. [http://www.france24.com/en/20130501-force-feeding-torture-un-law-guantanamo-hunger-strike/](http://www.france24.com/en/20130501-force-feeding-torture-un-law-guantanamo-hunger-strike/) > Guantanamo > human rights > international justice > Americas > UN calls force-feeding ‘torture’ amid Guantanamo hunger strike > > inShare > 0 print > > © afp > Text by News Wires > Latest update : 2013-05-02 > Force-feeding is “torture” and breaks international law, the UN’s human rights office said Wednesday, as 100 of the 166 detainees at Guantanamo Bay continue a months-long hunger strike. Twenty-one inmates are being force-fed through nasal tubes. > > Force-feeding hunger strikers is a breach of international law, the UN’s human rights office said Wednesday, as US authorities tried to stem a protest by inmates at the controversial Guantanamo Bay jail. > > “If it’s perceived as torture or inhuman treatment – and it’s the case, it’s painful – then it is prohibited by international law,” Rupert Coville, spokesman for the UN high commissioner for human rights, told AFP. > > Out of 166 inmates held at the prison at the remote US naval base in southeastern Cuba, 100 are on hunger strike, according to the latest tally from military officers. And of those, 21 detainees are being fed through nasal tubes. > > FRANCE 24 REPORTS ON GUANTANAMO > > Coville explained that the UN bases its stance on that of the World Medical Association, a 102-nation body whose members include the United States, which is a watchdog for ethics in healthcare. > > In 1991 the WMA said that forcible feeding is “never ethically acceptable”. > > “Even if intended to benefit, feeding accompanied with threats, coercion, force or use of physical restraints is a form of inhuman and degrading treatment. Equally unacceptable is the force feeding of some detainees in order to intimidate or coerce other hunger strikers to stop fasting,” it said. > Here is a copy of the procedure the US Military at Guantanamo implemented. [http://www.aljazeera.com/humanrights/2013/05/201358152317954140.html](http://www.aljazeera.com/humanrights/2013/05/201358152317954140.html) > > Finally my own opinion. There is an absolute right for every competent adult to decide to refuse medical treaemtn, medication, nutrition or hydration regardless of whether it inconveniences the efforts of the US Military to exacerbate suffering, trauma or discomfort for its own agenda. Neither is the US government entitled to force people to live, because it is being embarrassed by their death. > > The nurse is the only real moral authority in a place where such is lacking and there is military case law aplenty regarding the refusal to follow orders that abhor the conscience or constitute torture. delete post ---
**Author:** ![btthegreat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f4b2a3/32.png) [@btthegreat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/btthegreat)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/32 "2014-11-24T05:35:42Z")
> [@DinoR](#): > > Starting with your closing sincea point of strong agreement for me. > > I’ve got less agreement on the implied applicability of the rest of your post. > > I clipped a bunch here. It simply has nothing to do with justifying that the order was unlawful under UCMJ. The WMA stance is not international law. At best it’s a mitigating or extenuating circumstance for a commander or court martial to consider when assigning punishment if judicial action is pursued. It can also be considered by a separation board in determining whether to separate and how to characterize the discharge. It can inform governments on the best ways to implement accords. > We’re at least getting in the ballpark and this relates to the link I posted earlier. That’s an interpretation of the vague Geneva Convention language. It’s a common interpretation. The link I posted discussed concerns with no national implementation law or strong US legal precedent clarifying the “lawful” for the US military. There’s a case to be made there if this went to a judicial proceeding. From the story the command in is pursuing an administrative separation instead of a judicial proceeding. Maybe that’s because they wanted to spare the officer the chance of being found guilty in a court martial with far more serious effects (like turning big rocks into little rocks at a disciplinary barracks.) Maybe they didn’t want the distraction of a lengthy and politicized judicial proceeding. Maybe it’s a combination. > Maybe; it’s the most common application of the applicable accord. At this point the military is left holding the bag of negotiating the lack of clarity from either Congress or the Courts. > > There’s case law aplenty that ignorance of an order being unlawful, when it clearly is ethically wrong, does not constitute a defense. Do you have any cites that show simple lack of ethics being an affirmative defense for unlawfulness of an order? > > Incidentally this has been an issue for close to 9 years now. This 18 officer would have long since had their initial service obligation expire. They very likely could have resigned their commission in disagreement with the policy long ago unless they accepted an additional service obligation (for their own benefit). They didn’t. Their ethical objections obviously didn’t stop them from sticking around to draw their pay as long as someone else was doing the objectionable work. They only objected when their turn came. I admit it. I threw everything in the fridge into this pot to cook. Thank-you for draining it pulling out the grizzle, bone and bay leaves. I appreciate it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/33 "2014-11-24T07:23:25Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Well, it depends on what you mean by “political gesture”. The AMA doesn’t need a position on force-feeding unless and until its members are in a position where they are being invited to assist in force-feeding sufficiently often to require an institutional response. That situation had arisen in 2005. Any response by the AMA - including a decision to do nothing, or to affirm the legitimacy of force-feeding - would be seen as “political” since the circumstances that call for a response are themselves political, but I don’t see that that in any way invalidates or devalues the AMA position. As others have noted, this is not a new issue. People in prison have been going on hunger strikes for decades. And prison medical officials have been participating in force feeding hunger strikers throughout this period. The principle is that the state has an obligation to the well-being of people it’s holding in custody. It has to protect them from harm as much as practicable - and this includes self-inflicted harm. Starving yourself is obviously harmful. So forced feeding is not really a form of torture - it’s preventing harm rather than causing it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/34 "2014-11-24T07:26:14Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Much longer than that; it was used as a torture technique against suffragettes for example. So we’re talking at least back to the late 1800s. A nitpick but not quite that far. From what I can find, the first suffragette hunger strike started in [1909](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Wallace_Dunlop). ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/35 "2014-11-24T07:37:27Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > As others have noted, this is not a new issue. People in prison have been going on hunger strikes for decades. And prison medical officials have been participating in force feeding hunger strikers throughout this period. > > The principle is that the state has an obligation to the well-being of people it’s holding in custody. It has to protect them from harm as much as practicable - and this includes self-inflicted harm. Starving yourself is obviously harmful. So forced feeding is not really a form of torture - it’s preventing harm rather than causing it. I don’t know how correct the first claim is. I suspect that force feeding has been going on as long as hunger striking, but I also suspect it hasn’t always been performed by medics. Prison officers may have administered it commonly in the past. As for preventing harm rather than causing it, people haved died as a result of force feeding or its complications (and this may be related to my first point). A hospital will not force-feed you (unless they diagnose a mental illness which vitiates your capacity to make your own decision about whether to eat). The issue is whether, in prison, you lose the right you would have outside prison to make this decision for yourself. I don’t see a slam-dunk that says you do - since the 1970s, the British government no longer force-feeds prisoners who refuse food and, if they die, they die. (And there are notable examples.) And, whatever about the argument that a convicted felon loses rights including the right to choose not to eat, it’s hard to construct an argument that someone who hasn’t been convicted of any crime loses this right. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/36 "2014-11-24T07:52:06Z")
She will be metaphorically crucified. That is what happens to people who insist on following their conscience against the banal bureaucrats and has been throughout history. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/37 "2014-11-24T08:57:33Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Who has the right to order a nurse to do something against her morals and against the patient’s wishes? …her superior officers who she swore a legally binding oath to obey? > [@](#): > > Her choice is to tell the military to pound sand and go to the private sector. And she’s free to not re-up when her term is over. Until then, if she wants to violate orders, she gets to to face the consequences of that. This is cut and dry. The military has an obligation to not let prisoners die while in their custody, even if those prisoners are set on killing themselves, and she’s refusing a lawful order to that end. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/38 "2014-11-24T10:07:38Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > They were given a lawful order, failure to follow it is a crime. They should face punishment Putting aside the question of whether those orders really are lawful… You go from saying what the law is in one sentence to saying what _should_ happen in the next. I don’t think one necessarily follows from the other. The current state of the law can sometimes be morally in the wrong, don’t you think? If the act of force feeding is immoral, then _should_ people be punished for refusing to commit an immoral act when ordered to do so? You might not agree that there _is_ anything immoral about force feeding, but my point is that the morality of force feeding is relevant to the question. If the nurse had instead been ordered to do something that _you_ consider torture, and if the state of the law made that a legal order, then would your opinion by different? ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/39 "2014-11-24T10:15:52Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > This is cut and dry. The military has an obligation to not let prisoners die while in their custody, even if those prisoners are set on killing themselves, and she’s refusing a lawful order to that end. It sounds like you feel the military is morally in the right in keeping the prisoners alive by force feeding. Let me ask you basically the same question I asked **Martin Hyde** : If the nurse had been ordered to torture the prisoners (that is, to do something that you personally consider torture, but which in this scenario is nevertheless within their legal – if not moral – authority to order), would you still feel (1) that the nurse should have complied with the order, and (2) that she should be punished for failing to comply with the order? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2014, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447/40 "2014-11-24T10:36:52Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > If the nurse had been ordered to torture the prisoners (that is, to do something that you personally consider torture, but which in this scenario is nevertheless within their legal – if not moral – authority to order), would you still feel (1) that the nurse should have complied with the order, and (2) that she should be punished for failing to comply with the order? Yes and yes. When one swears an oath to obey the lawful orders of their superiors, they forfeit the right to object on moral grounds. If it is possible that taking such an oath would obligate you to do things you find morally reprehensible, then you should not take that oath. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-navy-nurse-who-refused-to-force-feed-guantanamo-prisoners-be-discharged/705447.md?page=3)