A History of Force Feeding
Hunger Strikes, Prisons and Medical Ethics, 1909–1974
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
This book is Open Access under a CC BY license.
It is the first monograph-length study of the force-feeding of hunger strikers in English, Irish and Northern Irish prisons. It examines ethical debates that arose throughout the twentieth century when governments authorised the force-feeding of imprisoned suffragettes, Irish republicans and convict prisoners. It also explores the fraught role of prison doctors called upon to perform the procedure. Since the Home Office first authorised force-feeding in 1909, a number of questions have been raised about the procedure. Is force-feeding safe? Can it kill? Are doctors who feed prisoners against their will abandoning the medical ethical norms of their profession? And do state bodies use prison doctors to help tackle political dissidence at times of political crisis?
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Frontmatter
- 1. Introduction
- 2. ‘A Prostitution of the Profession’?: The Ethical Dilemma of Suffragette Force-Feeding, 1909–14
- 3. ‘The Instrument of Death’: Prison Doctors and Medical Ethics in Revolutionary-Period Ireland, c.1917
- 4. ‘A Few Deaths from Hunger Is Nothing’: Experiencing Starvation in Irish Prisons, 1917–23
- 5. ‘I’ve Heard o’ Food Queues, but This Is the First Time I’ve Ever Heard of a Feeding Queue!’: Hunger Strikers, War, and the State, 1914–61
- 6. ‘I Would Have Gone on with the Hunger Strike, but Force-Feeding I Could Not Take’: The Coercion of Hunger Striking Convict Prisoners, 1913–72
- 7. ‘An Experience Much Worse Than Rape’: The End of Force-Feeding?
- 8. Conclusion
- Backmatter