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- Title
THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE AND REFUSE MENTAL HEALTH CARE: A HUMAN RIGHTS BASED APPROACH TO ENDING COMPULSORY PSYCHIATRIC INTERVENTION.
- Authors
BERGAN, COURTNEY A.
- Abstract
American laws carve out startling exceptions to the bodily autonomy rights of people with psychosocial disabilities, allowing states to forcibly confine and medicate people labeled with mental illness. Recently, many states renewed efforts to expand forced treatment invoking ableist, sanist, and paternalistic rhetoric suggesting that mentally disabled people are incapable of knowing their own needs, precluding them from making competent health care decisions and putting them at perceived risk of future harm. This Article will explore the historical trends of misusing psychiatric constructs to pathologize marginalized groups, along with the longstanding pattern of depriving people with psychosocial disabilities of appropriate care. Through exploring why people refuse psychiatric care, this Article will promote the right to choose and refuse care and suggest policy interventions to enhance access to desired resources, including culturally responsive mental health supports that are accountable to meeting individual needs.
- Subjects
PATIENT refusal of treatment; MENTAL health services; PATIENT decision making; MENTAL illness; PEOPLE with mental illness; MEDICAL decision making
- Publication
Journal of Health Care Law & Policy, 2024, Vol 27, Issue 1, p49
- ISSN
1097-4768
- Publication type
Article