Assignment 13: Legal and Ethical Issues     Due 5/14/01

The questions below are for you to think about and to be prepared to discuss in class.  No written answers are required.

1. Suppose someone you used to date has been following you and calling you on the phone, hanging up on you as soon as you answer.  You're annoyed, of course, but also frightened.  Under what circumstances do you think it would be reasonable for this person to be involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility, and what procedures should be followed before that can happen?

2. Suppose your 14 year old informs you that he/she intends to convert to a different religion, to which you are adamantly opposed.  Under what circumstances and/or when do you think your child should be given the right to pursue his own beliefs?

3. Come up with some suggestions as to how we can create more "consumer protection" for people seeking mental health services, while still respecting the diversity of opinion and approach among mental health professionals.

4. If a candidate for public office included the promise to raise taxes to provide more public money for spending on mental health and substance abuse treatment and prevention services, would that promise attract you to that candidate, or turn you away?  Explain why.

5. There is a convicted murderer in prison in Arizona, awaiting his execution by lethal injection. However, he suffers from paranoid schiuzophrenia, and he has been refusing to take any medication. As a result, he is grossly psychotic, and the courts have postponed imposition of the death sentence, ruling that he is "incompetent to be executed." The state's Attorney General has ordered the chief medical offcer at the prison to forcibly administer medication so that the prisoner might regain his competence and thus be executed; the prsion doctor has refused, claiming that to do so would be to cause harm to his patient. Do you side with the Attorney General or the prison doctor, and why?

Copyright ©1998 Beverly J. Volicer and Steven F. Tello, UMass Lowell.  You may freely edit these pages  for use in a non-profit, educational setting.  Please include this copyright notice on all pages.