"Force-feeding, here, had nothing to do with nutrition and everything to do with the master’s power to inflict pain according to her appetite for it, to end and begin worlds with the force of her command." Leah M. Ashe
"For centuries, many medical 'cures' for women's apparent deviancy and defiance had been punishment masquerading as therapies. Force-feeding was not a health-preservation measure; it was an unremittingly cruel tactic to break women's resolve, to weaken their will, to make them submit." Elinor Cleghorn
"Leading bioethicist George J. Annas denounced her force-feeding as “brutality” and warned that hospitals were at risk of becoming “the most hideous of torture chambers”. “Where are nursing and medical schools schooled in the martial arts of restraint, forced treatment, intimidation and violence?”, asked Annas, adding that “we should refrain from that action [force-feeding] because it perverts the very meaning of care and treatment. Medical care must be consensual or it loses its legitimacy”.
“Thursday morning, 16th July … the three wardresses appeared again. One of them said that if I did not resist, she would send the others away and do what she had come to do as gently and as decently as possible. I consented. This was another attempt to feed me by the rectum and was done in a cruel way, causing me great pain. She returned sometime later and said she had ‘something else’ to do. I took it to be another attempt to feed me in the same way, but it proved to be a grosser and more indecent outrage, which could have been done for no other purpose than torture. It was followed by soreness, which lasted for several days.” — Fanny Parker
In comparison to Frances’s case, Fanny never mentioned Dr. Ferguson Watson but only the wardresses. Due to her influential brother, Captain Parker, Fanny was released from prison and transferred to a nursing home. She had a medical examination from, Dr. Chalmers Watson.
‘The patient’s general appearance is that of a very thin woman in a state of pronounced collapse, her recovery from her present condition will be slow, several weeks at least elapsing before she will be restored to anything like her usual health. As she had complained pain in the genital region… two nurses examined her; they reported swelling and soreness.” Dr. Chalmers Watson
Fanny also underwent a gynecological test for her genital area, and the result was:
“Local inspection of the front passage revealed distinct swelling of the vulva in its posterior part and also the presence of a raw surface on the mucous membrane of the inner and outer folds on both sides. These appearances explain the marked pain complained of in the genital region.”
Dr. Chalmers Watson expressed his disgust with the rectal feeding treatment and vaginal insertion that happened to Fanny. He then hoped to have no more patients from either Perth nor Ayr jails.
Sexual assaults were undermined
The Suffragettes believed the rectal feeding and vaginal tube insertions were merely a sexual assault that Fanny and Frances experienced. However, their cases were neglected because World War I occurred on 4 August 1914. The government then gave the Suffragettes amnesty, and the group poured their energy to help in the war."
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‘An Experience Much Worse Than Rape’: The End of Force-Feeding?
At the twenty-ninth World Medical Assembly, held in Tokyo in October 1975, the World Medical Association formally declared that physicians should maintain the utmost respect for human life. First and foremost, the Declaration was concerned with stopping doctors participating in torture, defined as ‘the deliberate, systematic or wanton infliction of mental suffering by one or more persons acting alone or on the orders of any authority to force another person to yield information, to make a confession, or for any other reason.’ The Declaration insisted that physicians should never partake in cruel, inhuman, or degrading acts, particularly during civil strife or armed conflict. The Declaration also maintained that the right of patients (or victims) to be able to refuse medical treatment should never be overruled. Physicians should always act with clinical independence from state bodies. The Declaration was written in response to concerns about doctors helping to torture political opponents. In the Soviet Union, doctors had allegedly misdiagnosed politicised prisoners as insane to authorise their asylum incarceration. In Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, medical personnel had reportedly helped security agencies to torture by resuscitating prisoners who were close to death and issued false death certificates. From 1972, Amnesty International brought these issues to public attention and appealed to end medical participation in torture.
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