Physicians: “Anal feeding” of prisoners is sexual assault, has no medical use

I hope people finally demand justice and hand over G.W.B., Cheney, and all colaborators, to the World Court to begin to atone for what we have allowed to happen.

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Anal penetration is a sexual behaviour and it was forced on the victims. QED.

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Now I’m just imagining crank doctors reading out of Stumpfegger’s original notebooks and shooting that geriatric fuck up with meth six times a day.

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If you weren’t already angry at them, you must have missed how they kowtowed to this serial killer

I’m not even going to qualify it. Stanislaw Burzynski has caused the unnecessary suffering and premature deaths of scores of his patients through multiple methods of medical malpractice amounting to witchdoctory.

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Different board of practice, LDoBe. The people who allow medical quacks to continue killing people in Texas are not the same as the people who allow psychological quacks to continue practicing there.

Like Aeon, I was initially inclined to hate on the APA only discover that in this case they had done the right thing. Now that more evidence is available, someone else might apply again to have Mitchell disbarred, but he’s retired anyway.
I see that Jessen-- the other torturer-in-chief – was forced to resign his bishopric in the LDS, which is about as much karma as anyone is likely to get.

Ah, looks like I misparsed the grammar there.

You mean this court, the one the US is not a member of?

Yes, it is clear cut. There was no medical reason and they used the largest tube they had in order to inflict the most pain and suffering. Only 2 of the reported cases were attempting hunger strike. The other 3 were simply punitive as they were not starved or lacking in hydration. You might want to read the report.

So, you are arguing that the doctor the CIA has in place at these black sites just assumes things without actually examining the patient? Try again apologist.

EDIT: The mock-intellectual defense of rape here really gets to me.

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I appreciate the informative post (and way to save that baby!) but in this case we can all agree it’s bullshit. Had they tortured these people so badly that they couldn’t use their mouths anymore? I can believe that, but not having IV supplies on hand is one thing in remote Africa and another thing in an American government owned prison. And they were inserting hummus anally, not water.

That seems…sexist?

it was rape because it was unlawful forceful insertion of a foreign object in to the body without consent of the victim. Anal simply describes the area of entry and is not used to qualify the act as rape.

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What I said wasn’t clear cut is whether force feeding (of someone on a hunger strike) is generally ethical. You’re not making any effort to understand what I’m saying.

No, I’m saying someone becoming aware of this situation might assume that there’s a reason why they’ve chosen this method over others - and the report (which I obviously read, I’m commenting on specific points in it) doesn’t do a good job of explaining why this isn’t the case. You are not making any effort whatsoever to understand what I’m saying.

…and this is why I don’t post here (and why there’s no useful discussion on this site - it’s embarrassingly content free, thanks Antinous for nurturing this climate!). Even though I bloody absolutely agree with the general sentiment of everyone here, because I’ve done the slightest bit of critical thinking about the issue, and made the tiniest effort to understand different points of view and how others might see this issue, I’m now “the guy defending rapists”.

That’s beyond critical thinking and in to the land of apologist. As you have read the report, you know that they used the largest possible tube and they used it on people who had no hunger or thirst issues.

To avoid this pitfall, don’t defend rapists or try to rationalize their behavior. If this was a story about a private doctor who without their patient permission forced large tubes in the bodies of his patients when no legitimate need exists, would you try to understand his motivation? If this was a story about a serial rapist who captured innocent people and tortured and raped them, would you try to understand their point of view? I ask because both cases are what we are dealing with here and the mock-intellectual stance you attempt to take here is stomach turning.

Spending time contemplating justifications for a war crime only makes sense if you want people to lash out at you.

edit: additional

Is it up to the reader to understand or the writer to make themselves understood.

And I replied that it is very clear cut that anal feeding is never ethical or necessary.

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So now stabbing and shooting are sexual assault? Nah, it’s the butt thing.

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My post was not intended as a definition of rape but rather an explanation as to why ‘Anal feeding’ is considered a type sexual assault known as rape. But your attempts at levity in a discussion on institutionalized rape being committed on behalf of the people of the United States is so very clever that I’m sure it will be well received by rape victims and their families.

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Are you serious? How is it sexist?

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Uuuuuuhhhh.

Are you aware that men and women BOTH HAVE ANUSES and that this form of torture could be applied to either gender?

Seriously, why is this sexist? And why is it “the butt thing”? You’re making no sense.

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I don’t think this person was joking. I think they honestly were trying to claim calling this sexual assault is sexist, and “it’s the butt thing” – because they fail to realize that both males and females have anuses. Oooooor, maybe they are just a really bad troll.

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This person wasn’t joking. I am, however, trying to grok the automatic anal=sexual link. I’m aware that “sexist” isn’t the precise term, as I alluded to with my ellipsis and question mark. I don’t know the correct term, or even if one exists. What is the term for (I’m trying not to use the word assuming) taking as a given that anal=sexual?

However stupid and cruel, there’s only so many holes you can use to stuff hummus into the digestive tract. Presuming they chose the one without teeth, does that make it automatically sexual?

I’m not saying it wasn’t sexual. There’s strong historic evidence indicating that it is very possible. I’m just curious about the automatic and seemingly carved-in-stone perceived wisdom that if it’s done to the rectum it must be sexually motivated.

Absolutely. But the level of bullshit is different for anal feeding and anal hydration.

Anal feeding is just plain bullshit. It doesn’t exist as a therapy so stuffing food up the prisoners’ rear ends was anal violation and torture. Very simple, no further discussion needed.

Anal/rectal hydration does work, albeit not as a frontline therapy because there are other, better alternatives. But it is a therapy and it would be a shame to tar something that works as rape and torture, because that puts it beyond use altogether. So a more nuanced argument is needed, one that puts the blame on the practitioner (where it belongs) rather than the treatment.

In order for a physician to perform a treatment without consent from a patient, the patient must incompetent ie. be incapable of giving or withholding consent; must have a condition that is immediately threatening to life or limb; and the treatment must be carried out in the patient’s best interests according to standards set by a reasonable body of medical opinion.

The “treatment” here falls at all of those hurdles. It was therefore utterly unethical and the parties who did it should be hauled up in front of their registering bodies for censure.

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