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With that attitude, we’d still be dealing with smallpox.
There are definitely cases where it should be mandatory.
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No vaccine is 100% effective. Letting people decide to be infected means that they infect others, and kill them.
Getting everybody vaccinated meant that the disease became extinct, so nobody dies from it anymore.
Mandatory treatment when not getting treated can kill other people is perfectly acceptable.
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Why kill when there are less damaging options available?
No thanks.
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Your bodily autonomy ends when it starts harming other people. You don’t get to deny it to others through your decision to spread disease or leave a violence-inducing case of mental illness untreated.
The answer to that is simple. As long as he isn’t hurting anyone else, he can make that choice when legally competent, and be left the fuck alone otherwise.
However, when in jail, he gets medicated. Now, that would need to include protections against bullshit vagrancy laws, which ain’t going to happen, but I’m talking about a principle here, not reality
That’s the problem here:
This was the problem, she told him: He scared people. At one point, convinced that she and Sam, his stepfather, were body doubles remote-controlled by the C.I.A., he smashed the rear window of their car with a flagpole, and they called 911.
…
He was also sometimes scary. In one video, he tries to force his way into an apartment building, claiming he must rescue a porn star who is being held hostage. When residents call the police, he gets right in a male officer’s face. “Have you ever raped before?” he calls out insistently, filming the officer with his phone. “Sir, are you a rapist?”
He also seems to have a habit of carrying around a machete. This puts him into the realm of “he hasn’t killed anybody yet, but it seems like leaving him unmedicated carries a real risk that he will hurt somebody badly”
but I’m talking about a principle here, not reality
The individual case isn’t the totality of the principle. Could have likely put that bit towards the beginning and it would have been clearer.
The article isn’t really about only this one person. It does serve as very good example of why the issue needs resolution on a broad scale, with him having already proven dangerous when unmedicated.
But the principle still stands, that all of us should be able to refuse treatment when competent to manage our own care, and then have those wishes honored until we’ve crossed a line.
Right now, there is no such thing in the US as long term facility care for people with neurodivergence that severe that are dangerous except jail. It would be preferable if there were, but it would need robust protections in place to be viable. When there were such facilities, the abuse of and in them was rampant.
At least with the criminal justice system, a jury reduces abuse to a manageable level, and once imprisoned, the patients are at minimum danger to others.
But, dude, you gotta realize, this is the internet. It really doesn’t matter what I say, how I say it, or where I say it, someone is going to complain. There would be some asshole that comes along and bitches about this comment for being too long, if I made it first. So, on my end of things, keeping shit short and simple and then explaining any misunderstanding is a fuck ton easier than the opposite.
Sounds like he needs to be forced to take his meds then. It’s pretty cut and dry, in my opinion.
Ftfy: Sounds like they need to be forced to accept help from psychological professional who can help decide how to best integrate them into society.
If they cant corporate with that, are unwilling to find a way of life that works for them without harming/scaring others then involuntary commitment to a psych ward is in order to hopefully learn to understand the problem they pose and need for a solution with the goal of re-integration further down the line.
I dont believe that something like this can be solved with only a pill.
According to the article, it sounds like he was almost completely better just taking his antipsychotic. Although, I’d absolutely agree with your point as well. Certainly calls for a wholistic approach.
