California Campaign to Stop Medical Torture

California State Assembly to Vote on Stop Torture Bill

Martha Dina Argello, Executive Director of Physicians for Responsibility - Los Angeles and Sandra Schwartz, AFSC San Francisco Peace Education Coordinator display a Stop Torture banner. Photo: Steven Gibson

Senate Joint Resolution 19, a bill to prevent California-licensed health professionals from participating in torture, has passed the California State Senate and now goes before the Assembly. See below for details about SJR 19.

Your involvement by calling state legislators urging their support has directly contributed to SJR 19's progress, along with over 2,500 petition signatures, the testimony of respected professionals, and the endorsement of numerous supporting organizations.

Your continued support is needed to get approval of SJR 19 in the California State Assembly! Help win passage of SJR 19 by taking the following steps:

Contact Your Assembly Member

Find your legislator >

Read text of SJR 19 >

Track the legislation's progress >

Find your Assembly Member's contact information and call or email today to request support of SJR 19. Here are a few talking points you might use:

It is absolutely inappropriate that those who are charged with the duty to "do no harm"—that those who are supposed to be the healers in our society—should be involved in the torture of human beings.

It is completely immoral and unethical to be involved in torture under whatever name it goes by (enhanced interrogation, alternative procedures, etc.).

We need to support and protect the integrity of our health professionals.

By preventing health professionals from participating in torture, we uphold American and democratic values.

More points can be found in the downloadable brochure, "What Would Dr. King Do?" (PDF, 243 Kb), as well as in the Senate committee testimony below.

Thank you for your support of this statewide campaign that has national implications.

SJR 19 will request:

all relevant California agencies to notify California-licensed health professionals (doctors, psychologists, and others) about their obligations under international law relating to torture,

those health professionals to be notified that if they participate in torture they may be subject to prosecution,

the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency to remove all California-licensed health professionals from participating in prisoner and detainee interrogations.

Passage of SJR 19 would make California the first state to remove its consent from torture.

Testimony in Support of Senate Joint Resolution 19

Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee
California State Senate
January 14, 2008

The following people testified in support of SJR 19, a resolution to require California state licensing boards to notify health professionals of their obligation not to participate in acts of torture. Excerpts of their testimony is posted for viewing here.

Jean Maria Arrigo, PhD

"Advocates of psychologists’ involvement in interrogations argue that psychologists serve to keep interrogations safe, legal, and ethical. My intelligence contacts scorn this claim."

A social psychologist, Dr. Arrigo has studied ethics of military intelligence and weapons development on human subjects for more than a decade as an independent scholar. She established the Ethics of Intelligence and Weapons Development Oral History Collection (2004) at Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, and The Intelligence Ethics Collection (2005) at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford University, to gather oral histories and personal papers from concerned intelligence professionals. She is the author of the articles "Utilitarian Argument against Torture Interrogation of Terrorists" (2004, Science and Engineering Ethics, 10, 543-572) and "Perils of Torture Interrogation" (2005, Armed Forces Journal). In 2005, Dr. Arrigo was appointed to the American Psychological Association's (APA) Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security, which ended up concluding that psychologists played a "valuable and ethical role" in assisting the military. In a speech at the 2007 APA Convention, she outlined conflicts of interest and other irregularities within that task force—six of whose nine voting members were from the military and intelligence agencies.

Read Dr. Arrigo's testimony (PDF, 94 Kb) >

Eisha Mason

"For AFSC and the 2500 people who have signed our coalition petition, torture is a moral and spiritual issue that strikes at the heart of our identity as a people and a nation."

Associate Regional Director of the AFSC's Pacific Southwest Region, Eisha Mason is a contributor to How to Stop the Next War Now, co-author of 64 Ways to Practice Nonviolence Curriculum and Resource Guide, and host of The Morning Review on KPFK.

Read Ms. Mason's testimony (PDF, 56 Kb) >

Steven Miles, MD

"There is ample evidence from United States' government’s own documents that some military medical personnel were complicit in the mistreatment of prisoners."

Board certified in Internal Medicine, Dr. Miles is Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis and a member of the faculty of the University’s Center for Bioethics. He has served as President of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities and received its Distinguished Service Award. His latest book, Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror, Random House, 2006 examines military medicine in the war on terror prisons. Another book, The Hippocratic Oath and the Ethics of Medicine, Oxford University Press, reviews the meaning of the Hippocratic Oath as illuminated by the medical texts of its time. He has taught in many countries and has served as medical director for the American Refugee Committee for twenty-five years which has included service as chief medical officer for 45,000 refugees on the Thai Cambodian border and projects in Sudan, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzogovina, Indonesia and the Thai-Burmese border.

Read Dr. Miles' testimony (PDF, 78 Kb) >

Jose Quiroga, MD

"Currently, US health professionals who participate in water boarding face no sanctions."

Co-founder and medical director of Program for Torture Victimes, Dr. Quiroga is a globally-recognized authority on torture and trauma. He fled from Chile and arrived in America after the military coup that overthrew the democratically-elected president, Salvador Allende. He is a former assistant professor in the UCLA School of Public Health, and Associate Director of Preventive Cardiology at UCLA. Dr. Quiroga serves on the Executive Board of the Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles, and is a Vice President on the Executive Committee of the International Rehabilitation Council for Victims of Torture based in Copenhagen.

Read Dr. Quiroga's testimony (PDF, 142 Kb) >

Martha Dina Arguello, Executive Director, Physicians for Social Responsibility - Los Angeles.

Michael Bernard Beckwith, founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center, co-founder of the Season for Nonviolence, and who is also featured in the 2006 breakthrough film, The Secret.

Barbara Olshansky, known for her groundbreaking work on the 2004 Rasul v. Bush case, in which the US Supreme Court found that American courts have jurisdiction over claims brought by Guantánamo detainees who are foreign nationals. She currently leads a human rights law clinic at Stanford Law School.

Jonathan Parfrey, former Executive Director, Physicians for Social Responsibility - Los Angeles.