In the “ I am not making this up” category, a Delaware Jury convicted Melvin Morse, M.D., a pediatrician and noted authority on childhood near death experiences of water boarding his 11 year old step daughter as a form of discipline and punishment. He was charged by authorities with endangerment and assault after the girl ran away from home and reported on Morse’s behavior. His lawyers argued that he was merely washing her hair in a manner that she didn’t like.
Dr. Morse is a founder of the Institute for the Scientific Study of Consciousness. He is the author of several books dealing with childhood near death experiences including, Closer To The Light: Learning From The Near Death Experiences of Childhood and Transformed By The Light: Where God Lives.
Water Boarding, despite what Dick Cheney, who himself eschewed basic training in the military because of “other priorities,” might say, is torture, clean and simple. According to the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture, torture is,
any act by which pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for the purpose of obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him . . .
Torture also violates Article V of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions (1949) and the 8th Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibiting “ cruel and unusual punishment.” 18 U.S.C. Section 2340 also forbids torture outside of the United Stares.
Water boarding, in any event, is not a practice that should be tolerated in a civilized society, particularly when inflicted on an eleven year old girl. Certainly not by a pediatrician. What could he have been thinking or was he just doing research.
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