DEEPENING DILEMMA OF HUNGER STRIKES IN TURKEY: HOW DO WE APPROACH IT IF THE CHILDREN ARE ON STRIKE?

Turkey has experienced the longest hunger strikes and with the maximum participation in the last years. As a result, a  total of 140 people died. On September 12, 2012, another hunger strike took place which terminated 68 days later, on November 18, 2012, with no fatalities. The impact of this was devastating as, for the first time, the nation witnessed the participation of children in hunger strikes. Hunger strikes cause physicians to experience serious ethical dilemmas. Moreover, children hunger strikers inevitably deepen these ethical dilemmas even more.  The purpose of this article is to make an ethical evaluation of the hunger strike actions in general, aiming to focus on the hunger strikes of children which occurred as a new phenomenon on the ethical, legal and medical grounds.