Forced Treatment: Abolition vs Not Abolition

Abolition	Not Abolition
Free and informed consent means that there are no capacity barriers and everyone has the right to decide, without coercion or manipulation, after receiving full information and any desired support.	Free and informed consent means ensuring full information is provided to everyone who has the capacity to consent.
‘Stop forced treatment’ means ending in law and practice all forced treatment regimes, including inpatient and outpatient commitment, forced treatment in any setting, and forensic psychiatric commitment, and preventing the enactment of any new ones.	We say ‘stop forced treatment’ to prevent the enactment of new forced treatment regimes, such as the targeting of unhoused people, but do not seek to repeal involuntary commitment laws.
Without law reform forced treatment will continue – removing the power given to psychiatry by forced treatment laws is essential.	Forced treatment can be abolished without law reform – what matters is changing practices.
Reparations for forced psychiatry can benefit from the full application of international law – it can mean: * systemic changes to disempower psychiatry * economic, social and political justice for survivors * help and support to repair harm caused by the violations * truth telling and compensation through a reparations commission organized by human rights authorities, not health authorities * apologies by state and mental health systems only after lasting power shift and change of conduct, subject to survivors’ acceptance.	Reparations for forced psychiatry means compensation for malpractice, or an apology from the mental health system.
Justifications of forced treatment are based on prejudice and amount to disability profiling – we need instead: * non-judgmental support for dealing with suicidal feelings * one fair and respectful system for violence interruption – not psychiatry, and not policing in its current form * acceptance of non-ordinary mental states without fear.	It’s ok to use forced treatment if the person is dangerous to themselves or others, or having a psychotic episode.
Forced psychiatry is an act of unjustified violence. We do not need to take on unrealistic responsibilities to control other people’s life outcomes. We can find safe ways to meet our safety and self-care needs and our legitimate responsibilities towards others. We can apply harm-reduction and de-escalation principles when faced with the need to interrupt violence.	Using forced psychiatry against others in our personal lives can be separated from the fight for legal abolition.
To win everyone’s freedom and guarantee non-recurrence of violations, we must begin to fight openly for abolition through strategic litigation	If we want to win cases, we have to use the law as it is now even though it is fundamentally unjust.

© Tina Minkowitz 2024, free to circulate intact with credit