Should doctors assist torture prisoners?

Now that you know they may have assisted in torture at some point in the past, you may never look at doctors the same way again. (Getty Images/Hemera/Thinkstock)

The Hippocratic oath is based on the notion that physicians will above all else do no harm to others. It is explicitly stated that this concept is first, and everything else follows that. Don’t subject prisoners of war to hypothermia and hyperbaric experiments. Don’t vivisect thieves or debtors to better understand anatomy. Don’t separate twins to study genetics. But what if the people who employ a physician do harm to others; what role does a doctor play then?

This conundrum would be nearly hypothetical if not for  torture. Yet torture is so prevalent in human society that physicians face a very real and frighteningly common conundrum of whether to serve as medical aides to people who are being subject to torture. On the one hand, a doctor who provides medical services to those who are being subject to torture are inherently complicit to that torture. In fact, their presence not only condones it, but may allow it, since in extreme cases, a physician’s care could keep a tortured prisoner alive to face more torture. On the other hand, a doctor who refuses to provide medical care for a tortured person is shirking the other foundational tenet of medicine, to provide aid to anyone who needs or wants it.

A pair of bioethicists recently examined this problem and concluded that the lesser of two evils is for physicians to continue to provide health care in the torture prison setting; that, as horrific as torture is, torture plus no medical relief is worse. Yet, the ethicists also concluded that the international medical community should continue to maintain its stance that no physician may serve to assist in any way torture of any kind, but basically look the other way when it happens. In this way, the medical establishment can continue to lobby for a world where torture does not exist, but its members can also live free of prosecution.

Not everyone agrees. A study from a few years ago from another bioethicist concluded that physicians should be held accountable for their histories of serving to aid and abet torture by providing medical care during such procedures. This study from a University of Minnesota researcher, points out that more physicians treat torture prisoners who are undergoing torture than treat torture survivors, a black eye on the medical profession to be sure. The study also points out that about half of torture survivors report that a doctor was at least present or even oversaw the torture.

It’s a curious question that the medical establishment must entertain: Should physicians who assist in torture by providing medical care to tortured prisoners continue to be allowed to sweep their past under the carpet? Of course, this would be a moot point if the United States and the other estimated 100 countries that practice torture techniques discontinued its use outright.

Here are some enlightening articles on torture on HowStuffWorks.com: When is torture legal? // Is there a torture manual? // What are the five most prevalent forms of torture and why? // Has torture always been controversial?