First, do no harm. It’s a commandment often incorrectly attributed to the Hippocratic oath yet it provides an ethical foundation for modern medicine. The American Medical Association’s principles of medical ethics begins, “A physician shall be dedicated to providing competent medical care, with compassion and respect for human dignity and rights.”
But what happens when a physician violates this ethical code? This is not a hypothetical question — it’s a transgression happening right now at the U.S. military detention camp at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. On November 1st, a group of more than 35 physicians, former military personnel and health experts sent President Obama a letter demanding that he end the practice of force-feeding hunger strikers at the prison. The letter’s signers, who include a retired Brigadier General and former U.S. Surgeon General, identified themselves as deeply invested in maintaining the principles of medical ethics. “We believe that the practice of force-feeding hunger strikers at Guantánamo Bay severely breaches those principles and undermines medical care at the detention center,” they write.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. President Obama made a campaign promise to close “Gitmo,” and on January 22, 2009, he issued an Executive Order, “Closure Of Guantanamo Detention Facilities.” The order promised that, “The detention facilities at Guantánamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order.” Continue reading
This is the game my older son and I played this weekend. He would bolt into a four-lane thoroughfare, and I would shout and jump around: “Get out of the street! It’s not safe! GetoutgetoutGETOUT!” Then I would dash into the street after him and we would laugh and laugh. And then he would pretend he was the grownup, and I was the kid, and he would yell at me. And we then laughed some more. 
