Monday, April 18, 2011

Can the Mentally Ill Be Hospitalized Against Their Will?

The title of the article is a question to all: "can the mentally ill be hospitalized against their will?"
The author talks about the legal rights of the process of involuntary hospitalization. He says that involuntary hospitalization is only accepted when the person with mental illness seems like he is going to harm himself or other people. Because this is taking away someone's freedom, it requires other people's proof of witness that they believe the person might harm someone, which in my opinion can be very biased.

Though the law itself prevents from mentally ill people from losing their freedom in a hospital or institution, I think it is still arguable whether this is morally right or wrong. When I think about the video that we saw last week about the mental institution in NY and the conditions of it, having a psychiatrist determine a person to be involuntarily hospitalized can still cause a lot of problems, even though they are the professionals because anyone can misjudge or make mistakes anytime. Though there isn't a clear solution to keep the person from harming someone, the morality of involuntary hospitalization is something that everyone should think about.

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