Global Breaking News - Monday, December 23, 2024

The Ethics of Force-Feeding Inmates
By starving themselves, 100 inmates at Guantánamo Bay have drawn attention to the fact that most of the 166 prisoners there have been cleared of any connection to terrorism, none have been criminally charged and, after a dozen years, all remain there indefinitely.“I don’t want these individuals to die,” President Obama said on Tuesday. So Navy nurses and others have been called in to help force-feed 21 of the worst-off prisoners. But as the American Medical Association told the secretary of defense, international standards have upheld a prisoner’s right to refuse food and drink. So is it ethical to force-feed prisoners?
* draw attention = 관심을 끌다/ be cleared of ~ = ~의 혐의가 풀리다/ indefinitely = 무기한으로/ be called in = 귀대 명령을 받다/ uphold = 옹호하다; (요구 사항의 타당성을) 인정하다 

 (단식 투쟁을 하는) 죄수자에게 강제로 음식을 먹이는 것이 윤리적인가요?

1. To Save These Men, Free Them
The inmates need to know there is another way out of Guantánamo than by body bag.

2. Officials Are Responsible for Prisoners’ Care
The hunger-striking prisoner may be willing to die in pursuit of his goal. But the stress of incarceration may distort reasonable thinking.

3. Patients, Not Politics, Are Nurses’ Concern
Nurses who refuse to force-feed act in accord with professional values.There cannot be a health care solution to a political problem.

4. Force-Feeding Is Only Part of an Ethical Intervention
Keeping prisoners alive against their will is ethical only if it is part of a larger attempt at suicide prevention: changing the desire for death and changing the circumstances.

5. Either Way, It Helps Recruitment
In Guantánamo, doctors have been positioned between established medical ethical standards, the military chain of command and policy shaped not by ethics but a political dilemma.

Sample Essay

Force-Feeding Is Only Part of an Ethical Intervention

Hunger strikers are risking their lives, and might be trying to kill themselves. But that does not necessarily constitute what we think of as “suicide,” and trying to stop them is not necessarily suicide prevention.

Suicide is usually defined as an intentional action to end one's own life. However, the deaths of terrorists who are called “suicide bombers” in English are not really considered suicides; the intention is to cause harm to others for political reasons, and the fact that the terrorist dies in the process is secondary. The person does not commit the terrorist act in order to die; death is just a consequence.

In the situation of a hunger strike like that of the detainees at Guantánamo Bay, the objective is political, and the hope of the person is that his action will result in a change in his situation. It may also be true that those involved in the hunger strike would rather die (commit suicide) than endure in the current circumstances.

So does the government have a responsibility to try to prevent the detainees’ suicide? Suicide prevention involves diagnosing the reasons someone is suffering and then either changing the situation or the person's perceptions of the situation. A person devoted to suicide prevention would do everything possible to change the person's reasons for wanting to die. Simply saving the life – like by pumping the stomach of someone who swallowed a bottle of pills, or by force-feeding someone on a hunger strike – can buy time. In the case of saving the life of a person who took an overdose, buying time usually results in saving a life because people pay attention to the person’s suffering. After this “close call,” the person often gets help from mental health professionals, and family and friends offer support.

In the case of Guantánamo, intervening to save or prolong a person's life without trying to change the person's reasons for wanting to die cannot be considered suicide prevention. Suicide prevention would involve intervening to change the person's desire to die (despite his circumstances) or changing the situation that he feels is intolerable.

From the news reports I have seen, those steps are both absent, and therefore the military’s force-feeding does not constitute suicide prevention. It could be ethical to force-feed prisoners – to buy time – but not if that is the whole plan. It would have to be part of a larger intervention to change the circumstances and the desire to die.