I read the article called “Medical Ethics at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib: The Problem of Dual Loyalty” written by Peter A. Clark. This article discusses how the US military medical program did not protect the prisoners’’ human rights, violated the basic principles of medical ethics, and ignored the basic tenets of the professionalism (570). It talks about how the human rights were overlooked and violated in order to find out important information in order to win the war. Basically, the officers have to balance their duty to the military and the medical needs of the prisoners, which is given the name of dual loyalty. The abuses were defined to be sleep deprivation, lack of food, clothing and means for personal hygiene. Also, their religious rights were denied and they were event put in unsafe work areas. Even though the medical personnel are taught through their training about human rights, they still seem to find loopholes in law in order to treat the prisoners badly. The medical personnel as stated in the article should have reported the abuses and attempted to stop them or else this is a violation of the principle respect for persons (575).
I hope to find out more about the dual loyalty and why the medical personnel treated the prisoners with such disrespect. I hope to be able to support the question of how the loss of humanity is related to authority positions. I hope to find out more about what the thoughts of the medical personnel were and how they dealt with the dual loyalty.
Clark, Peter A. "Medical Ethics at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib: The Problem of
Dual Loyalty." Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 34.3 (2006): 570-580.
Academic Search Complete. ebsco. web. 7 Apr. 2011.
This is quite an interesting issue, and i agree that these practices are quite unethical. But do you think that these people deserve better? Maybe you could research some of the crimes committed by these prisoners and see how unethical they were in the acts they did that landed them in Guantanamo Bay. I personally feel some of these prisoners don't even deserve to be kept alive, then again maybe some of them are innocent, and deserve to be let free.
ReplyDeleteWhen dealing with criminals against the nation, which is what the people locked up in G-Bay are, it is very difficult to decide what rights to give or take from them. You have to realize that some of these people are of the most radical form of their religion which calls for the murder of innocent people through suicide bombing or other tactics. I am sure there are a lot of mistakes made during the process of gathering information, but what is an alternative in order to find the correct information?
ReplyDeleteAbe- I do think some of them deserve better. I mean they are still Humans just like us. I think they deserve to be put to death if proven a 100% guilty or be kept in their for life. I do not think it is right to dehumanize them or sink down to their level. We should be better than them and not torture them or else we are in the same boat as them. Do you think the people in prison here in the US who raped and murdered deserve the same punishment???? They are very similar in the fact that their action affect multiple people on different levels...
ReplyDeleteScott- I dont really understand you question.. Could you explain it further?
ReplyDelete