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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.
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.
...in Scientology should be held. Their beliefs defy all credulity.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
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.
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.
When the same sort of legislation was being pushed in Massachusetts, I personally delivered a speech against it before the Joint Committee on Mental Health. I was there with an army of other mentally ill people, their friends, their loved ones, and even some of their doctors, standing against this dangerous breach of our civil rights.
The speech is here, in the block-quoted portion, sandwiched in a more detailed discussion of the issue. Don't let anyone frame this as the agenda of some cult. I believe in psychiatry, I wouldn't be alive without it, but this legislation is abhorrent.
The Baker Act would already give them that fear.
The police are already called in on a regular basis to deal with patients whose guardians (be that family or whatever) have lost control of them, and frequently this has deadly results as handling psychiatric patients isn't something law enforcement does well or are trained to do. Substituting medical professionals, and having a four hour limit to prevent abuse, seems a fairly big improvement on the status quo.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
if everybody was mentally healthy, they wouldn't have any followers.
The mentally ill do need to be confined at times as do many alcoholics and drug addicts. We are losing millions of good people who could have been helped or cured because we can not break up the patterns of their illnesses.
Scientology is not a cult, it's a business.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
...No. It's because, being a person who built a religion from the ground up as a business, he correctly understood that, historically speaking, any religion's direct competition is the field of psychiatry. I mean, I'm not saying he wasn't bugfuck insane, but give credit where it's due.
Psychiatrists are medical doctors.
Jade Helm truther, Scientology puppet... it is staggering to realize that Rick Perry was _not_ the worst modern-era Texas governor.
This is the same governor who assigned some of the Texas National Guard to observe the Jade Helm military exercises in the southwest because he had been convinced that it might represent a threat to Texas. The idea was that Obama was using Jade Helm as a trial run for martial law before he declared himself President for Life. I wish I were making this up.
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.
Ken