Mayor Koc Paternalism In Medical Case Study

In 1987 New York City started Project Help to assist needy, homeless people but they resisted. Joyce Brown was the first person picked up by Project Help. She was forcibly brought to the emergency room at Bellevue Hospital. Here she was treated against her will and then transferred to a psychiatric unit. After the psychiatrist evaluated Joyce Brown at Bellevue, they informed Mayor Koch that she was neither sufficiently insane nor sufficiently dangerous to legally commit without her consent. When the police bring someone to a psychiatric facility, their release happens after a hearing. Prior to Brown's hearing, she contacted the ACLU to represent her. They agreed under the condition if she allowed her hearing to be public. At the hearing, people learned about Brown's past. She had graduated from both high school and business school. she had held several jobs at Bell laboratories. In 1982 at age 38 she was fired from HRC due to absenteeism and use of drugs. She avoided shelters for the homeless, considering them dangerous for unattached women. She shunned her sisters, fearing they would commit her to a psychiatric unit again. Eventually, the judge made the decision in Brown's favor. However, Mayor
Paternalism is justified by temporary incompetence. However, the American legal system tends to treat mental patients as if they were either totally competent or totally dysfunctional and thus subject to involuntary treatment. Many observers believe competence is not an either-or capacity, but a matter of degree on a gradient. Another question concerns the proof of competence and incompetence. Abernethy argues, that disorientation, mental illness, irrationality and commitment to a mental institution do not conclusively prove incompetence. He concludes that competence is presumed and does not have to be proved yet incompetence has to be