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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.
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.
Is that so? So, if you present with symptoms typical for Ebola, you should be free to leave (and thus endanger a potentially huge number of people) if you want?
I vehemently disagree. Your (and my) right to freedom ends when you endanger others. Because, you know, others have rights too.
I initially agreed with you, but then saw that they were talking only about the ability to detain a patient for a maximum of four hours. That seems reasonable, and unlikely to be seriously abused.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.
Because, you know, others have rights too.
This is America. If you feel endangered, remember the second amendment.
It was self-defense your honor. I saw him rub his nose and sneeze.
Psychiatrists are medical doctors.
I agree there can be abuse, but here's a counter example:
My neighbors across the street were a well-educated couple in their early 50s. Your stereotypical liberal, white academics. They had a son in college. Mike was a university professor and Theresa was a writer and an editor for a book publisher. We hosted several neighbors for a New Year's Eve party, including this couple. We had known all of them for a few years.
During the party, Theresa was unusually animated -- if I didn't know better, I'd thought she'd done a couple lines of coke. Fast forward a couple of months later, I see her pulling up to her house in a brand new hybrid sedan. I start talking to her and it's like, wow, Theresa, no more coke. She's, well, crazy animated. She's got a semi-paranoid story about how her husband left her. She's starting her own magazine. She's arranging a photo shoot in Nepal. She's just bought a $2000 recumbent bike. A $2000 set of downhill ski gear.
A week later, I see her again. This time "I've been staying at the Grand Hotel [a pricey, boutique hotel downtown] because I need Internet access and Mike made it so I can't get it at home."
A week after that, a really scary looking black guy is getting out of her car -- without her -- and is seen going in and out of her house, sometimes carrying stuff to load in the car. Her immediate next door neighbors try talking to the guy "Hey, how's Theresa?" and he's angry and threatens them. They call the cops, the cops detain the guy but they let him go after talking to Theresa on the phone "Yes, he's my boyfriend."
Fast forward a few weeks later and we see her ex-husband and we get the story. Theresa is bipolar. She's went off her meds around New Year's Eve. She got so bad and refused any kind of treatment or to take her meds, yes, he does leave her and basically files for divorce to protect himself from her.
By the time her sister -- working with lawyers -- is able to gain conservatorship of her, about a month later, after probably six weeks of trying, she's nearly bankrupt. When she and her husband divorced, their house had been recently remodeled and was owned free and clear. She stayed, mortgaged the place to cash him out and had blown through the $200k half of her equity plus another $50k in credit card debt. Fired from her job, the "magazine" a total fantasy. The black guy was literally some guy she met on the street outside the hotel.
Her sister finally gets her committed on a short-term basis and they get her back on her meds. By this time, though, she's done. She files bankruptcy, sells the house short along with almost all her possessions to try to pay off some debt. She ends up in a studio apartment somewhere, working part-time at a book store.
All of this happened in about six months. About 2 months into it, before the divorce is finalized, Mike had called her sister and said "Terry is out of control, we have to do something" but it was all futile. Had they been able to institutionalize her and stabilize her, she might still be living across the street with a manageable mortgage and some cash in the bank. But because it was so impossible, her life is basically over. Totally broke, divorced, career lost, friends alienated.
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.
The real lesson here is that of $cientologists are going to continue behaving like a political action group, their tax exempt status should be revoked.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.