Politics and Bioethics Essay

The usanceal roles of the mendelevium argon to meanwhile off death and to comfort the dying. The sick and the injured assume that a doctor w giddy be able to prolong their lives by bent them of their disease. The dying, on the other hand, believes that a doctor will allow them to breathe out peacefully and with dignity by relieving them of their suffering. In the process, the physician is transformed into a cargontaker and protector of life. save what if physicians be essential to use their medical checkup skills to eat up purposeies that are considered as threats to a rescript or a democracy?Doctors who are involved in capital punishment and or the pain of prisoners often claim that they follow a distinct set of obligations (Beauchamp and Childress 316). They are expected to place the interests of a community or a demesne above both their own and the detainees benefit. As a result, they have to wrap up prisoners divers(prenominal)ly from their other patients. Physi cian participation in the death punishment is not a historical novelty. The inventor of the guillotine was a genial doctor who wanted to make executions more humane (Gershman 23).In Herman Melvilles novella Billy Budd (1924), a physician ensured that the hanging of the main image was scientifically conducted (Melville 293). Before Gary Gilmore was put to death, a doctor pinned a unclouded circle over his heart as a target for the inflaming squad (Annas 69). The adoption of the lethal injection as a methodology of executing deplorables further increased the involvement of physicians in capital punishment. obscure from supervising the execution, a doctor is likewise tasked with preparing the prisoner for execution, pronouncing death and as authorized which individuals should be excluded from the death penalty (Annas 69-70).In 2002, the United States Supreme judicature included the diagnosis of kind retardation as a cast anchor for prohibiting execution. The physician, meanw hile, selects the detainees that would be spared from execution by subjecting them to a medical test that would plunge their (ability) to understand (capital punishment) and why is it being imposed (Annas 70). Advocates of physician involvement in the death penalty often argue that the goals of care for can be reconciled with those of capital punishment.The master(a) objective of the death penalty is to reject crime by executing those who have been proven guilty of atrocious wrongdoings. The main purpose of medicine, on the other hand, is to alleviate suffering. In the context of medical participation in capital punishment, these goals are both met society is rid of a criminal in a civilized and easy manner. In some cases, criminals that have been proven to be mentally ill are freed. But facts prove otherwise. Forensic psychology is an entirely different discipline from clinical psychology.The latter is obligated by the Hippocratic tradition to give primacy to the needs of t he patient (British Medical Association 105). The former, in keen contrast, is bound to the objective truth regardless of what a forensic psychologist whitethorn find on the prisoner whom he or she is studying. This difficult overlap between medicine and the law would definitely affect the processes of establishing guilt or innocence and resolving disputes (British Medical Association 106). The medical profession is in like manner tainted with a long history of physician involvement in the strain of prisoners.The Nuremberg trials revealed shocking atrocities committed by Nazi doctors and biomedical scientists during the Holocaust. down the stairs their direct supervision, countless psychiatric patients and senile elderly persons were killed. Furthermore, they subjected unconsenting concentration ring inmates to cruel and sometimes lethal experiments (Caplan 78). It was first revealed in 2002 that doctors and other military force were force-feeding and using truth serum on de tainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.In 2003, medical personnel at Abu Ghraib treated torture victims and recorded the evidence, besides failed to subject area these incidents. The International committee of the Red Cross then encompassed in 2004 that the usage physical and psychological torture on prisoners were rampant in Guantanamo. Furthermore, a group of psychologists, know as the Behavioral Science reference Team (BSCT or Biscuit), advised the interrogators (Rejali 401). Why would doctors people who are supposed to protect life participate in torture?It must(prenominal) be noted that the Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib doctors were working in prisons that held individuals that were believed to be terrorists. Thus, these physicians were expected to actively participate in the War on Terror by care tortured prisoners alive until American soldiers manage to extract valuable intelligence service information from them. Simply put, the duty of the Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib doctors to the detainees under their care was to treat them not out of adherence to the Hippocratic Oath but that of the desire to ease defeat the enemies of the US.But it is never acceptable for military physicians to participate in torture. Article 1 of the Regulations in Time of Armed Conflict (likewise known as the Havana Declaration) maintains that there is no difference between medical ethical motive in times of armed conflict and medical ethics in times of peace. Article 2, meanwhile, makes clear that the primary task of the physician is to preserve wellness and fulfil life, therefore prohibiting him or her from a.Giving advice or performing prophylactic, diagnostic or therapeutic procedures that are not excusable in the patients interests b. Weakening the physical or mental strength of a human being without therapeutic justification and c. Employing scientific knowledge which would imperil health or destroy life (Singer and Viens 354). Because the primary task of doctors is to pres erve health and save life, they are morally required to report incidents of torture or mistreatment of prisoners. According to Principle 5 of the Committee for the Prevention of bedevilment (CPT)Doctors have a duty to monitor and deal out when services in which they are involved are unethical, inglorious and inadequate or pose a potential threat to patients health. In such cases, they have an ethical duty to take prompt proceeding as failure to take an immediate stand makes protest at a later stage more difficult. They should report the matter to remove authorities or international agencies who can investigate but without exposing patients, their families or themselves to foreseeable serious risk of harm. (354)Reporting cases of torture and ill-treatment is part of the physicians sworn duty to preserve health and save life. If he or she suspects or witness the abuse of detainees, he or she should immediately report his or her findings to the judiciary and any other inquiring b ody (Action for Torture Survivors, CPT, Amnesty International, etc. ). A failure to do so is usually synonymous to omission, an offense which is actionable in criminal and civil law. But the doctor is not obliged to immediately report cases of torture if doing so would imperil his or her life.In this case, it is necessary for him or her to wait until the threat to his or her security has passed and or there are already relevant third parties to whom she could disclose his or her findings (Singer and Viens 354). The end of medicine is not limited to the treatment of the sick and the injured. It should likewise concern itself with the health of the mind, spirit and the community as a whole. There are certain societal conditions that result in the physical, mental and spiritual degradation of a given populace.The torture of prisoners is a good example of these societal problems victims of torture are not only physically injured but are also stripped of their dignity as human beings. B eing a doctor, therefore, means not only preserving health and saving life but likewise going against a status quo that would hinder him or her from fulfilling these duties. mankind health, after all, is more than just the absence of disease. It also means animate in a society that is conducive to physical, mental, social and spiritual wellbeing.But how can people attain this objective if they live in a community that is hostile to it? Works Cited Annas, George J. American Bioethics Crossing Human Rights and health Law Boundaries. New York, New York Oxford University Press US, 2005. Beauchamp, Tom L. , and James F. Childress. Principles of biomedical Ethics. 5th ed. New York, New York Oxford University Press US, 2001. British Medical Association. practice of medicine Betrayed The Participation of Doctors in Human Rights Abuses. 2nd ed. London Zed Books, Ltd. , 1992. Caplan, Arthur L.When medicament Went Mad Bioethics and the Holocaust. New York, New York Oxford University Press US, 1992. Gershman, Gary P. Death Penalty on Trial A Handbook with Cases, Laws, and Documents. Santa Barbara, California ABC-CLIO, 2005. Melville, Herman. Billy Budd and Other Stories. Ware, Hertfordshire Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1998. Rejali, Darius M. Torture and Democracy. Princeton, New Jersey Princeton University Press, 2007. Singer, Peter A. , and Adrian M. Viens. The Cambridge Textbook of Bioethics. Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 2008.