An adult who wants to engage in suicide only needs to be hospitalized if they want to be hospitalized. Nonconsensual psychiatry and psychiatric coercion should be illegal. Read the book Suicide Prohibition: The Shame of Medicine by psychiatrist Thomas Szasz. Only consensual psychiatry should be legal. Individuals who want to engage in suicide have reasons for wanting to engage in suicide. To purely medicalize suicide is dehumanizing. It will be good if we can reduce suicides to zero using persuasion, reason, and kindness. Psychiatric coercion has a chilling effect on free speech; it prevents adults from being able to have open and honest conversations about suicide in private settings without fear of potentially being effectively jailed in a hospital against their own will. People who want help should be offered help in solving problems in living contributing to emotional distress. Adults who do not want help should be able to exercise the right to be left alone.
Outlaw Psychiatric Coercion
November 25, 2018
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