The Case for the Abolition of Mental Health Law

Abstract

Chapter 3 traces the history of opposition to mental health law including anti-psychiatry and the emergence of the disability rights movement explaining where the call for the abolition of mental health law has come from and why it has emerged in international human rights law now. It argues that the call for abolition is more than just a reaction to historically poor treatment, but is a qualitatively different basis for understanding mental impairment. It explains the Abolition with Support model and sets out the key arguments for the abolition of mental health law being that mental health law is a form of social control of non-conformists, that it is discriminatory and a denial of legal capacity, that free and informed consent is integral to the right to health, that it is an unjustified interference with liberty, that it is an unjustified interference with the integrity of the person, that it is a form of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment and punishment, that it is inconsistent with the right to independent living, that it is ineffective and un-therapeutic, that there are better non-coercive alternatives, that it undermines the ‘dignity of risk’ of persons with mental impairment, and that mental health law is too ‘easy’ and creates a culture of coercion throughout the entire mental health system. While I ultimately argue against the abolition of mental health law in favour of substantial reform, I argue that it is important to listen to and properly understand abolitionists’ concerns in order to improve mental health law and include persons with mental impairment in the policy-making and health-care decision-making process.