Suppose an infant is ill. Is it better to forcibly medicate them or to imprison them until they either die or get better?
Clearly, there's scope for the care givers to be wrong about what course of treatment is wrong for the child, or be wrong that what they don't like about the child constitutes an illness. Or indeed to be wrong about the child's capacity to give or withhold informed consent. But in at least some circumstances society is content that it's fine for the child to be treated.
While I personally feel society may be a bit too relaxed about that, I'm certainly not about to throw the baby out with the bathwater (er… to choose an unexpectedly appropriate metaphor) by saying infants should never be treated.
Now: is it possible for an adult to be so mentally disabled that their capacity to make rational healthcare decisions in their own best interests is disastrously impaired? Short answer: yes. I'm not talking about people behaving irrationally for other reasons, nor about minor aberrations, but in the starkest terms, if someone is in a condition which means both that they'll die without treatment and are in no fit state to accept and take the treatment, unless there's some living will or similar indication of what their views were when they were in a fit state, I say give them the treatment.
If you found someone unconscious and bleeding in the gutter, you'd call 999, the ambulance would take them to hospital and the hospital would treat them before they regained consciousness. That's completely routine and fine. Why does a different principle need apply if the person genuinely lacks the capacity to give informed consent for treatment in some other way?
And yes, as with the case of a child, I suspect we're a little too ready to forcibly medicate adults. History certainly shows that, for example, homosexuality, heresy and dissidence have been forcibly "treated" in the past, so it would be complacent to believe people in another century's time won't look back in horror at some of the things we're doing now.
But perhaps the media's a little too keen to cherry-pick the cases where things go wrong. I certainly hope the majority of cases are a little more comfortable and clear-cut and thus never get reported. /-8
no subject
Clearly, there's scope for the care givers to be wrong about what course of treatment is wrong for the child, or be wrong that what they don't like about the child constitutes an illness. Or indeed to be wrong about the child's capacity to give or withhold informed consent. But in at least some circumstances society is content that it's fine for the child to be treated.
While I personally feel society may be a bit too relaxed about that, I'm certainly not about to throw the baby out with the bathwater (er… to choose an unexpectedly appropriate metaphor) by saying infants should never be treated.
Now: is it possible for an adult to be so mentally disabled that their capacity to make rational healthcare decisions in their own best interests is disastrously impaired? Short answer: yes. I'm not talking about people behaving irrationally for other reasons, nor about minor aberrations, but in the starkest terms, if someone is in a condition which means both that they'll die without treatment and are in no fit state to accept and take the treatment, unless there's some living will or similar indication of what their views were when they were in a fit state, I say give them the treatment.
If you found someone unconscious and bleeding in the gutter, you'd call 999, the ambulance would take them to hospital and the hospital would treat them before they regained consciousness. That's completely routine and fine. Why does a different principle need apply if the person genuinely lacks the capacity to give informed consent for treatment in some other way?
And yes, as with the case of a child, I suspect we're a little too ready to forcibly medicate adults. History certainly shows that, for example, homosexuality, heresy and dissidence have been forcibly "treated" in the past, so it would be complacent to believe people in another century's time won't look back in horror at some of the things we're doing now.
But perhaps the media's a little too keen to cherry-pick the cases where things go wrong. I certainly hope the majority of cases are a little more comfortable and clear-cut and thus never get reported. /-8