Hunger Games: Guantanamo Bay

                Guantanamo Bay is back in the news.  It seems that several of the inmates are currently participating in a hunger strike that began in February of this year.  It was started to draw attention to the camp and make a political statement that it should be closed as President Obama promised it would be during his 2008 campaign. 

The hunger strike started with just a few prisoners and has expanded to over 100 of the 166 detainees.  About 45 of them have lost a significant amount of weight and require forced feeding to keep them alive.

                So, what does “forced feeding” entail exactly?  Twice each day the prisoner is restrained at the hands, feet, and head, in a chair, a feeding tube is inserted into the stomach though the nose, and a protein shake (Ensure, or the like) fed to the prisoner through this tube.  The process can take up to 2 hours per person, per feeding.  With 45 people on feedings, each twice a day, this is no small operation for the Guantanamo Bay medical staff.

                Some activist groups consider the forced feedings to be torture.  To back up their claim they look to the world of medical ethics.  The World Medical Association and American Medical Association, among other organizations, accept that patients have the right to refuse life sustaining treatment, including tube feedings.  This has been established through cases like that of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman in a vegetative state whose story made headline news in the early 2000s.

                Reprieve, a human rights group, recently released a video of Hip-hop artist/actor, Yasiin Bey (also known as Mos Def) undergoing the same forced feeding procedure that is happening in Guantanamo Bay.  In the video, Mr. Bey is unable to complete the procedure and it is stopped before the tube is even completely lowered into his stomach.  For much of the 4 minute video he is seen screaming and crying in an orange jumpsuit while being restrained in a chair, with people in white lab coats attempting to place the tube in his nose.  He continues to scream and struggle, until an off screen voice tells them to stop the procedure.

                The video was made to illustrate the painful nature of the forced feeding procedure; the group considers the procedure a form of torture and has openly called for the feedings to be stopped.  The tag on the Reprieve website is, “Reprieve delivers justice and saves lives, from death row to Guantanamo Bay.”   Given their current argument about the forced feedings I find this tag line to be ironic.

It seems Reprieve has missed a major memo, so let me break it down here:

If we stop the forced feedings and the prisoners still refuse nourishment, they WILL die!

So, the question becomes: can you live with that?

If you will please look to the left of our military you will see a rock and to the right a hard place…now choose.

The military defends their decision to pursue the forced feedings saying they don’t allow suicide by any other means, so they choose not to allow it in the form of starvation.  I understand their position and that they are trying to prevent the loss of life.

My personal feelings however, are against the forced feedings.  Not because they are torturous or painful, though I’m sure the procedure is less than pleasant.  I am against them because I think our military and our country are being manipulated by the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.  They stop eating and what has been the American reaction?

-          The New York Times printed an editorial about the horrors of Guantanamo Bay in a prisoner’s own words. 

-          We discuss how the forced feedings could interfere with Ramadan, therefore violating the prisoners’ right to freedom of religion.  (Side note: The feedings are currently being performed at night to respect the religious traditions of the prisoners.)   

-          Human rights activist groups, like Reprieve, take up the cause and renew the fight for the camp to be closed.

I don’t think the men of Guantanamo Bay actually want to die the miserable death of starvation, but rather they have found a captive audience for this new game of theirs.  If the feedings continue the hunger strike will never end.  The only way I can see to convince the men to start eating again is to let them see their decisions play out in some of their comrades.

I understand that my opinion is probably not a popular one, I don’t even like it myself to be honest, but what choice do we have?  Many will certainly say, “Close Guantanamo Bay…there is your choice.”  To them I say:

Whether you choose to believe it or not, there is a reason these men are being held in Guantanamo Bay and a reason that our current President, like the last one, has not closed the facility.

Why Should We Care About the Romeike Family?

So, this first topic is less bio and more broadly ethical than I typically plan to cover on this site.  I hope you will indulge me however, as the topic is near and dear to my heart: homeschooling.  Being a former homeschooler in my family we say, “we were homeschoolers when home schooling wasn’t cool.”  These were the days of keeping organized boxes with every math test, paper, spelling quiz, drawing, and worksheet you had ever completed along with an action plan for if the fine gents in blue came knocking on our door.  During this era we were very familiar with Home School Legal Defense (HSLDA) and paid close attention to each case that came through.  So, when I recently heard about the Romeike family the old antenna went up.

The Romeike’s are a German family, in 2006 they decided to pull their children from the public schools for religious reasons (they are Evangelical Christians).  Homeschooling is illegal in Germany, the law banning it first being strongly enforced by Hitler and the Nazi Party.  The stated reasoning for this law is a fear of “Parallel Societies.”  Defined as: “A community in which members of different backgrounds lack a shared sense of group identity and thus live separately, side by side.” Found on - http://civicdilemmas.facinghistory.org/content/glossary  This to me sounds much like the copout used here of, “your children will not be properly ‘socialized.’”  In 2008, the Romeike family sought asylum in the US to be free to homeschool their children.  When homeschooling in Germany they had been: fined, their children forcibly taken to the public schools, and the parents threatened with jail time and loss of custody of their 6 children.  In 2010, they were granted asylum…so, we are done right, and they lived happily ever after?  Not quite.

The case has now been taken up by the US federal government in Romeike v. Holder and the government is arguing for deportation of Mr. and Mrs. Romeike and their children.  The stance of the government is that homeschooling is not a basic human right and that if Germany outlaws homeschooling for everyone then it is in essence “fair.” Therefore, in the opinion of the US government this family is not being persecuted.  I find this defense worrisome. 

The government is saying that it is not a violation of religious freedom or human rights to forcibly remove a child from his/her parents and force him/her into public schools for 22-26hrs per week.  The argument made was that the parents would be free to “teach” them during the remainder of the time.  If this argument is being made by our government about Germany’s restrictive education laws how long will they willingly let homeschooling stand here in the US?  Will we soon be back to boxes and action plans?

I do not know this family personally, but believe very strongly that denying them the right to homeschool is a violation of their religious freedom as well as their human rights.  Who has a more vested interest in a child’s success and proper upbringing: the parents, the government, or the teacher?  Certainly, the parents, biologically and emotionally a parent desires to see their child succeed.

My hope for this family is that Home School Legal Defense will win the case and they will be granted asylum, setting a precedent for other families under similar persecution around the world.  It seems to me an open and shut case, the family feels the education their children would receive in the public school is a violation of their religious beliefs, and therefore they cannot send their children to school.  If sent back to Germany the parents would be taken to jail and the children turned over to the state.  What is our asylum law worth if it doesn’t prevent loving families from being separated for expressing an act of conscience? 

The US federal government has taken a scary stand on this issue and I believe we are not only fighting for the Romeike family but setting an important precedent for US homeschoolers as well.  My family was very blessed to see homeschooling blossom during the decade we were part of the active community and I will continue to sound the alarm for those who come after us as the right to homeschool has made me the woman I am today.  I am eternally grateful for this right (as well as the fact that my parents took advantage of it) and I will continue to fight to keep it.

If you would like to read more about the Romeike family here are the articles I used for the information in this post:

http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/romeike-family-homeschoolers-escaped-from-germany-told-by-doj-homeschool-is-not-a-protected-freedom-94978/

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/03/20133772515825350.html

http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/2013/201302110.asp

I particularly recommend Home School Legal Defense (HSLDA).  Also, if you would like to donate to Home School Legal Defense for this case please click http://fundly.com/mercuryoneeducation, Mercury One is hosting a campaign where 100% of the funds it raises through this link will go to Home School Legal Defense for this case and others to protect the rights of homeschooling families.

And So We Begin

                “Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.” - Thomas Jefferson

                It is from constant thought and questioning that we come to our beliefs, moral standards, and ethics as a society.  Lately, it seems that we do less and less questioning and critical thinking, while advances in technology push us into deeper and deeper ethical dilemmas.

                In this blog I will, in my way, try to spur discussion on ethical issues as they pertain to the biological or life sciences.  I have my M.S. in bioethics from Union Graduate College and have a sincere passion for bioethical debate, thought, and discussion.  On this page my plan is to write commentaries on current events and issues in bioethics.  Some of the topics I plan to pursue are: abortion, physician assisted suicide, environmentalism, and health care.  These topics are certainly not limited so if you have further suggestions please feel free to share them with me.

                All of our opinions are colored by the lens through which we view the world.  For me, I am a strong Catholic who views the world as the divine creation of a loving God.  I believe in the sanctity of life and that man is meant to be a good steward of creation.  My political affiliation is Libertarian Conservatism.  I do not believe that the government is the only hope for the helpless or that problems are solved through bureaucracy and regulation.  Rather, they are solved through ingenuity and creative thinking.  I believe in charitable works and that it is our individual job to care for the helpless.

                I am a trained scientist in the areas of biology and biochemistry and value reason and proof in argument.  I live for differing opinions and love nothing more than a good honest debate.  It is an unfortunate reality that our culture has forgotten how to have healthy debates where both sides present well formed, well-reasoned arguments.  Instead, what often happens now is communication breakdown and one side or the other dissolves into name calling.  I would like to avoid this here, I know many of you will often disagree with my opinion and I welcome reasoned dissent.  I do not profess to know everything or be right all the time and realize that we all come at things from our own personal biases.  Please challenge me, I welcome it, but I do ask that you try to avoid the mental kiddie pool that is driven by insults and name calling.

                I hope, dear reader, that you find the world of bioethics as fascinating as I do and I look forward to beginning this journey with you.