Torture, or a Constitutional Right?
This is considered torture, and by some a constitutional violation:
In this procedure, the individual is bound securely to an inclined bench, which is approximately four feet by seven feet. The individual’s feet are generally elevated. A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner. As this is done, the cloth is lowered until it covers both the nose and mouth. Once the cloth is saturated and completely covers the mouth and nose, air flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds due to the presence of the cloth. This causes an increase in the carbon dioxide level in the individual’s blood [that]… stimulates increased effort to breathe. This effort plus the cloth produces the perception of “suffocation and incipient panic,” i.e., the perception of drowning. … The sensation of drowning is immediately relieved by the removal of the cloth. . . .
We also understand that a medical expert with SERE experience will be present throughout this phase and that the procedures will be stopped if deemed medically necessary to prevent severe medical or physical harm to Zubaydah.
This is a constitutional right:
The primary form of abortion used at or after 16 weeks’ gestation is known as “dilation and evacuation” or “D&E.” 11 F. Supp. 2d 1099, 1103, 1129 (Neb. 1998). When performed during that stage of pregnancy, the D&E procedure requires the physician to dilate the woman’s cervix and then extract the fetus from her uterus with forceps. Id., at 1103; App. 490 (American Medical Association (AMA), Report of the Board of Trustees on Late-Term Abortion). Because of the fetus’ size at this stage, the physician generally removes the fetus by dismembering the fetus one piece at a time.3 11 F. Supp. 2d, at 1103—1104. The doctor grabs a fetal extremity, such as an arm or a leg, with forceps and “pulls it through the cervical os … tearing … fetal parts from the fetal body … by means of traction.” Id., at 1104. See App. 55 (testimony of Dr. Carhart). In other words, the physician will grasp the fetal parts and “basically tear off pieces of the fetus and pull them out.” Id., at 267 (testimony of Dr. Stubblefield). See also id., at 149 (testimony of Dr. Hodgson) (“[Y]ou grasp the fetal parts, and you often don’t know what they are, and you try to pull it down, and its … simply all there is to it”). The fetus will die from blood loss, either because the physician has separated the umbilical cord prior to beginning the procedure or because the fetus loses blood as its limbs are removed. Id., at 62—64 (testimony of Dr. Carhart); id., at 151 (testimony of Dr. Hodgson).4 When all of the fetus’ limbs have been removed and only the head is left in utero, the physician will then collapse the skull and pull it through the cervical canal. Id., at 106 (testimony of Dr. Carhart); id., at 297 (testimony of Dr. Stubblefield); Causeway Medical Suite v. Foster, 43 F. Supp. 2d 604, 608 (ED La. 1999). At the end of the procedure, the physician is left, in respondent’s words, with a “tray full of pieces.” App. 125 (testimony of Dr. Carhart).
Got that?
UPDATE: The Baseball Crank had a similar idea.
