Scientology Group Urged Veto of Mental Health Bill

An anonymous reader writes: According to records obtained by The Texas Tribune, Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed a bill that would have given doctors more power to detain mentally ill and potentially dangerous patients, after a Church of Scientology-backed group helped organize a campaign against it. "Medical staff should work closely with law enforcement to help protect mentally ill patients and the public," he said. "But just as law enforcement should not be asked to practice medicine, medical staff should not be asked to engage in law enforcement, especially when that means depriving a person of the liberty protected by the Constitution." The bill would have allowed doctors to put mentally ill patients on a four-hour hold if they were suspected of being a danger to themselves or others. The bill had the support of two of the nation's largest medical associations.

Comments

Feels weird agreeing with scientologists

[guises]

It feels weird agreeing with scientologists, but you know how it goes with a broken clock.

Doctors get an awful lot of trust, much of it deserved and most of it necessary, given what they do, but seeing a doctor shouldn't mean risking my freedom. Even temporarily.

Re:Feels weird agreeing with scientologists

[Anonymous Coward]

It's up to 4 hours for a raving lunatic to "cool down".

Re:Feels weird agreeing with scientologists

[fyngyrz]

The only reasonable role of the medical community is to address those issues for which we give informed consent. If our consent is to be over-ridden, it is critical that the process is both formal and can be pushed back against because otherwise, the sequence of events is open to being entirely arbitrary.

So while it can be entirely appropriate for a doctor to advise the legal system that so-and-so seems to be off their rails in their estimation, the power to decide if that's so, and to do something about it, and the liability for doing so wrongly, should remain within that same legal system.

No doctor, plumber or priest should ever have formal power to restrain a citizen's liberty. It is a monumentally bad idea.

Yes, it is true that the government doesn't do a great job -- legislation, police, courts -- they all have problems, many of them severe. The proper remediation of that is to improve the government at whatever level(s) it is failing to meet our requirements. Not to assign powers to constrain liberty to non-governmental authorities.

If a person's behavior rises to the standard of actually causing harm, now we're talking about any person's right to defend themselves from same. But if you are simply exhibiting behavior others don't like or don't understand, but are not harming anyone in the process -- then we should keep our hands off you.

First, do no harm

[Anonymous Coward]

The Constitution does not protect someone from killing themselves. Allowing someone who just attempted suicide to walk out the door is akin to allowing them to try again.

Nice work, Governor Abbott. Let us know when Texas is ready to join the rest of the world in treating mental issues as a serious problem.

Re:First, do no harm

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that there are already provisions in the law to place a 72 hour hold on anyone who may be a danger to themselves or others.

The threat of a 4-hour hold will keep people from seeking mental health when they may need it most.

Dangerous power

[abies]

There is a knee-jerk reaction of always standing on the other side of whatever Scientology says, but you need to be very careful in case of mental instiutions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I don't see it that far fetched that US government could classify fanatical suicide terrorism as mental illness in 2025 let's say. And then you don't need Guantanamo anymore - there is enough torture-like devices in hospitals to make life uncomfortable for people.

We have had very ugly case in Poland recently (and in theory, being part of EU, we are supposed to be 'first world' country). Some guy got cheated by mayor of small town, assaulted him in public and went for psychiatric observation. Chief doctor of the insitution was very good friend of the mayor... guy got diagnosed with mental illness, being dangerous and got locked away. He tried petitioning for cross-examination etc etc (he was ready to server small jail sentence for assault and then be able to go to civil court to get right for how he got cheated finacially by mayor), but all letters got stopped at hospital. They are allowed to do so, because some crazy people are writing conspiracy theory letters to police every day, so there is a law to stop 'aimless correspondence'. Here, chief doctor decided that all his appeals for crossexamination, freedom and accusing mayor of wrongdoings would upset authorities.
Fast forward 7 years.
Guy leaves hospital completely broken by heavy medication, homeless and to be honest, quite crazy now.

Another case - some guy claims other guy threatened to kill him. No process and instead of few months in prison for verbal threats, 8 years in closed ward.

(Opposite is also true. Guy drives car on pedestrian walk on purpose (there was no road nearby and he was driving for few km , hitting 23 people in process. Instead of going to jail, he got diagnosed as unstable, goes to hospital and can possibly go out after half year. He used to study psychiatrics and his father is very rich so...)

There are so many protections and possibilities to appeal built into judical system, but at same time, we want to give unlimited power without possibility of appeal to some doctors.

Strawman

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice try, but ebola -- which can be tested objectively -- isn't the issue. The issue is that doctors are being asked to subjectively evaluate people who may or may not be mentally ill, who may or may not have an inclination towards violence, and who may or may not have the will to actually exercise that inclination. In other words, they are being asked to perform "pre-crime" sentencing, which is in direct opposition to the principle of innocent before proven guilty.

Shame on the unthinking herd that modded this guy up. This strawman was dressed in blinking christmas lights and you STILL missed it.

Intended to fix what?

[kenh]

Maybe it's just because the Aurora, CO shooter was convicted this week, but I suspect people are looking for ways to prevent those types of tragedies, presuming there is no other way - there are plenty of ways to evaluate a person for psychological issues:

A parent can submit their child for evaluation
A friend or family member can ask the court to intervene
A judge can order an evaluation as part of a criminal trial involving the person
A school can petition for an evaluation

The Gabby Agiffords was know to be suffering serious mental problems by friends, family, classmates, his school administration and law enforcement event - no one wanted to intervene.

The Sandy Hook shooter had profound mental issues, but he mother tried to keep him 'out of the system' to protect her child from being stigmatized, she paid the ultimate price when her son killed her and stole her weapons.

And so on - the real challenge is people don't want to get involved in other people's problems, don't want to cause problems for their child, sibling, friend, or classmate that is struggling with mental issues.