How easy is it to be committed to a psychiatric facility? Its so easy in the United States that a person is involuntarily incarcerated every 1 minutes. The same situation applies broadly throughout the world.
According to Robert Hayes, Associate Professor of Law and former Commissioner of the Australian Law Reform Commission, the fact that mental illness is rarely defined, even in psychiatric text books, that faith in psychiatry is not always borne out by results of treatment, and that without specific criteria and a real prospect of useful curative treatment, commitment to a hospital may be oppressive and even arbitrary.
The undeniable fact is that basic human rights are granted to killers and terrorists. Yet those same rights are denied people who have been accused of being mentally ill and subsequently committed. Similarly, the burden of proof for any alleged criminal to be convicted and incarcerated is beyond reasonable doubt. For civil committal, however, all that is required is probable cause, reasonable grounds, or a reason to believe there might be a danger to self or others.
Hence, a disgruntled neighbor, a spouse, a fellow employee or anyone you know could accuse you of being a danger to yourself and others, and you could be required to undergo a psychiatric examination to prove your sanity.
In Defense of Victor Gyory:
In 1969, Hungarian refugee Victor Gyory was committed to Haverford State Hospital in Philadelphia, stripped naked, held in isolation against his will and forced to undergo electroshock. He was refused the right to an attorney and denied the right to refuse treatment. CCHR obtained the aid of Hungarian born Dr. Thomas Szasz, who discovered that Gyory had been diagnosed as schizophrenic with paranoid tendencies for one simple reasonhis inability to speak English. Chief counsel for CCHR prepared to take Gyorys case to court to test the constitutionality of Pennsylvanias law, at which point the hospital director discharged Gyory.
Since then, CCHR has campaigned relentlessly to expose the unconstitutionality, discrimination and human rights violations inherent in psychiatrys easy seizure laws.
