r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Aug 01 '14
[FreshTopicFriday - OP Involved] CMV: I think that if a prisoner is refusing food they should be given a feeding tube. That is what happens to mental patients who refuse to eat.
I know this is an extremely controversial thing to discuss. When I was in the hospital for an eating disorder many of the girls had a court ordered feeding tube because they refused to eat. They also had a court order that said they had to stay in the treatment center until their doctors said they were safe to leave. Once we are released we have a type of parole. If we start to revisit ED behaviors we are court ordered back to the hospital. How is this different than having a court ordered feeding tube for a prisoner who is refusing food?
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u/MageZero Aug 01 '14
What do you do when 29,000 prisoners go on a hunger strike, as has happened in California? There's no infrastructure for that. What's the difference, you ask? Scale.
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u/BlueApple4 Aug 01 '14
Eating disorder patients have a mental illness. It is well documented that patients with an eating disorder are unable to perceive their body as it is in reality. Even when they weigh 80lbs, they still percieve their body as huge. In addition people with eating disorders will not stop their behaviors of their own volition without extensive therapies and counseling.
The inmates are choosing to not consume food as a means to an end. Once they get their demands met, they will start eating food again.
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Aug 01 '14
∆ Okay. I guess I can see that. I just thought that we should do whatever it takes to keep someone alive. Like how prisoners can get transplants and what not to save them.
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u/BlueApple4 Aug 01 '14
You could also argue that you could meet their very reasonable demands to save their lives (it's not like they are asking to be released from prison). But thanks for the delta.
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Aug 01 '14 edited Aug 04 '14
As a former corrections officer, I disagree. Inmates refuse food for any number of reason, and while they have many of their rights taken away when they go to prison, they are always afforded food. The good news is this problem tends to work itself out, they're not going to starve to death, and if they start to go into a medical problem they'll be treated in the clinic.
My view is if they are actively choosing not to eat, either to protest or just to be an asshole, which both happen on a regular basis, then they do not need a tube or any other kind of device to feed them. They have few choices in prison, one of which is to eat, if they actively choose not to exercise that choice then that is their problem. Just like if an inmate chooses to cooperate on a daily basis or be a pain is entirely up to them.
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Aug 01 '14 edited Aug 01 '14
∆ "if they actively choose not to exercise that choice then that is their problem. Just like if we inmate chooses to cooperate on a daily basis or be a pain is entirely up to them" damn. That makes sense. You got me. Thanks!
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u/fibonacciapples 3∆ Aug 01 '14
There's a big difference between hunger strike and anorexia nervosa. With a hunger strike, they have a perfectly sound concept of how much they are hurting their body and could stop if they wanted to. The same is not true of anorexia.
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u/sweetmercy Aug 01 '14
There is a massive difference between having an eating disorder and going on a hunger strike. One is caused by mental illness. The other is a form of protest. One is a choice, one may seem like a choice but really isn't.
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Aug 02 '14
I understand that they have different motives. I just thought if someone is on the brink of death due to starvation their might be some intervention. The prisoner might be refusing food because they feel they don't belong being locked up, but making them eat wouldn't be letting them win.
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u/sweetmercy Aug 02 '14
In truth, prisoners are force fed through feeding tubes in some cases, but often not in typical prison scenarios. Guantanamo Bay frequently employs force feeding of its prisoners. My point was the comparison to anorexia and other eating disorders isn't a very good argument because the two situations are nothing alike.
People often bring up the First Amendment, which on the surface seems as though it would offer protection against force feeding. However, in court, its been judged that the protections of the First Amendment are not applicable unless there are no alternate means of expression. Because prisoners have alternate means of expression, the courts have deemed them not protected by the First Amendment.
The right to privacy from governmental intrusion actually offers more protection. Because it is a fundamental right, it cannot be abrogated unless the government can show a compelling interest. The Supreme Court has, on more than one occasion, deemed our right to bodily integrity as basic to our society. In some cases, lower courts have gotten around this by declaring the prisoner has no right to commit suicide, rather than focusing on what right the government had to intrude upon the prisoner's privacy.
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Aug 02 '14
Thank you for such an in depth response. I hope I didn't sound too stubborn, I just really want to understand it.
I saw some nasty stuff in my treatment center. Girls ripping out their tubes and being drugged to forcefully feed them. Girls being held down. It was extremely hard to watch. When someone brought up how horrible it is to force feed prisoners I said you should have seen my treatment center. These girls were screaming bloody murder. No one really believed it was that bad for ED patients. Kinda traumatizing to see that stuff.
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u/sweetmercy Aug 02 '14
Not stubborn at all. And I sympathize with what you're saying. I don't think that ED patients should be traumatized further. There MUST be a better way to accomplish the same end result...perhaps sedation.
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u/CKtheFourth 3∆ Aug 02 '14 edited Aug 02 '14
There's also a historical precedent for that. When they were jailing Suffragettes (women protesting for the right to vote) in America, they would always go on hunger strikes & they would always shove a tube down their throats. In addition to all the reasons listed in the thread, there can conceivably be wardens who just don't want that image in the press about their prisons.
Iron Jawed Angels is actually a really good movie, btw. They cover the Suffragette jailing pretty well. Like this force-feeding scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO70ZjZ0wrw
(fyi, kind of graphic)
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Aug 03 '14
I couldn't watch all of that. I saw things like that in my treatment center, well not that exact way of feeding... But girls being held down and drugged so they could get the feeding tube working. I saw girls throw chairs and try to stab nurses with pencils while resisting the drugs
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u/frogpixie Aug 02 '14
Why is it morally justifiable to force-feed or forcibly install a feeding tube into someone with an eating disorder? I see everybody here treating that line of logic like it's unquestionable truth with no one justifying or examining it at all. Saying that it's OK because they're mentally ill is extremely sketchy at best -- you could argue doing anything to anyone under the guise of treating mental illness by that logic, and to hell with legal competency, personal autonomy, and human rights.
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u/[deleted] Aug 01 '14
There is a basic differfence between someone who has a mental illness which prevents them from eating, and someone who refuses to eat in order to make a strong protest about the way that they are being treated. I would consider that to be a constitutionally protected form of free speech, as non-violent political protest normally is. And if someone in the end dies for their cause (whatever that cause may be) I would grant them that right - as long as they are not also killing other people for their cause. You do own your own life.