If trying to save prisoners' lives is considered abuse, I'd say we're ina PR war we can never win:
More than 250 physicians from around the world are condemning the Pentagon's practice of force-feeding suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a letter in today's edition of the British medical journal Lancet.
"Fundamental to doctors' responsibilities in attending a hunger striker is the recognition that prisoners have a right to refuse treatment," says the letter, which accuses the U.S. military of violating medical ethics.
[. . . ]
The signers included noted British neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks and South African physician John Kalk, who refused to force-feed hunger strikers in Johannesburg during apartheid.
Those who go on a hunger strike are making a poltical statement, are they not? Those who force-feed them are also, and, in this particular case, I like their statement better.
