Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 September 2019
For individuals whose mental illness impair their ability to accept appropriate care—the depressed, acutely suicidal mother, or the psychotic lawyer too paranoid to eat any food—statutes exist to permit involuntary hospitalization, a temporary override of paternalistic benefice over personal autonomy. This exception to the primacy of personal autonomy at the core of bioethics has the aim of restoring the mental health of the temporarily incapacitated individual, and with it, their autonomy.
Acknowledgement: This manuscript was produced with significant contribution from, and intellectual inspiration of, Guillermo Palchik, Ph.D., Clinical Neuroethicist, California Pacific Medical Center, San Francisco, CA.
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