This article poses a response to one argument supporting the force feeding of political prisoners. This argument assumes that prisoners have moral autonomy and thus cannot be force fed in the early stages of their hunger strike. However, as their fasting progresses, their cognitive competence declines, and they are no longer autonomous. Since they are no longer autonomous, force feeding becomes justified. This article questions the recurrent citation of a paper in empirical support of the claim that hunger strike causes (...) mental disorders or cognitive impairments. The paper, written by Daniel Fessler, partially relies on the Minnesota Starvation Experiment conducted in 1944 to 1945 for scientific support. Using widely accepted criteria for assessing the ethical acceptability of clinical research, we argue that the Minnesota Starvation Experiment had significant scientific shortcomings and is a case of unethical research. From this, we question the appropriateness of citing the Minnesota Starvation Experiment and consequently Fessler’s paper. If Citing Fessler’s paper becomes problematic, this particular argument for the force feeding of prisoners loses much of its strength. (shrink)

In 2015, the Israeli Knesset passed the force-feeding act that permits the director of the Israeli prison authority to appeal to the district court with a request to force-feed a prisoner against his expressed will. A recent position paper by top Israeli clinicians and bioethicists, published in Hebrew, advocates for force-feeding by medical professionals and presents several arguments that this would be appropriate. Here, we first posit three interrelated questions: 1. Do prisoners have a right to hunger-strike? 2. Should governing (...) institutions force-feed prisoners and/or is it ethical to force-feed prisoners? 3. Should healthcare professionals force-feed prisoners? We then focus on the first and third questions. We first briefly provide several arguments to support the right of prisoners to refuse treatment. Next, we critically review the arguments presented in the Israeli position paper, demonstrating that they are all misguided at best. Lastly, we briefly present arguments against force-feeding by medical professionals. We conclude that healthcare providers should not participate in the force-feeding of prisoners. (shrink)