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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

George Annas, JD, MPH, Health Law Dept., Boston University School of Public Health, 715 Albany St., Boston, MA 02118-2307, 617-638-4626, annasqj@bu.edu

The cases of Terri Schiavo, Hurricane Katrina, and the force-feeding of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay can usefully be compared and contrasted to explore the interrelated issues of government responsibility to care for patients, to feed the hungry, and to prevent break hunger strikes. In each case government obligations can be contrasted to human rights and human dignity issues that set the limits to ethical and legal government interventions. In addition, self-determination can be examined in each setting to see how the US government has tried to undermine autonomy in the first setting, use it as an excuse for failure in the second, and attempt to destroy it directly in the third. The right to refuse treatment, including fluids and nutrition (sometimes called "food and water") is a powerful human right--but more important in the world is the "right to food", perhaps the most basic human right of all. How can we use these three politically prominent cases to promote what has been described as the most often ignored human right of all: the right to food?

Learning Objectives:

• Compare Schiavo, Katrina and Guantanamo
• Contrast "forced" feeding in Schiavo and Guantanamo
• Understand the human rights aspects of Schiavo, Katrine, and Guantanamo

Keywords: Food Security, Human Rights

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation