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Man with Asperger's forced to have Bowel surgery!

Mr Allen

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
Link.

If this is in the wrong section, feel free to move it.

My thoughts on this? I'm very sorry but WTF?! So the Judge said that because he has Asperger's he doesn't have the mental capacity to make his own decision?

Contrary to popular belief, Aspies are NOT mentally incapable, on the contrary we're rather intelligent!

Jesus wept.
 
Oh I get this all the time ie that aspegers is a mental health issue and even, recently some said: you know, you can get rid of aspergers, if you just try harder!!! When I relayed this back to my husband, who was there at the time, he insisted that the person did not mean what I imagined he meant, which makes me feel as though I am not to trust what I heard.
 
Having read the article it seems that the judge was speaking specifically about one individual and not aspies in general.
 
If I were the patient I would challenge the decision post-operatively and if I were to win such a case proceed with a case of assault against the hospital.

Obviously this would be different if the doctors could show that he were likely to die without such surgery.
 
Link.

If this is in the wrong section, feel free to move it.

My thoughts on this? I'm very sorry but WTF?! So the Judge said that because he has Asperger's he doesn't have the mental capacity to make his own decision?

Contrary to popular belief, Aspies are NOT mentally incapable, on the contrary we're rather intelligent!

Jesus wept.

Holy Mack!!! What a nightmare. I hate Drs anyway. THis is scary. Are they going to say that cancer is mental, too? They are now putting everything under mental health. I know why. Because everyone knows psychiatry is a joke and it's about to die out.

You don't EVER say to someone "Man, you are totally Parkinsons" No, but people say "You are mentally ill!" as a joke or a put down.

It's a dying profession and they are trying to preserve it. Oh, you have your arm cut off? It's just mental.
 
He should have involved the Department of Work and Pensions. They always know if people have enough mental capacity or not.
 
I do not like the idea of telling someone they don't have the capacity to make decisions. He said NO. He just made one.

I know, I know------best interest, etc.

But dang, leave people the hell alone! It's just a red hering because no one cares if homeless people "act in their own best interest"

This guy must have money attached to him by way of benefits or dis payments they don't want to lose.
 
The article doesn't say that the judge ruled this man incapable because of his Aspergers. Just that this person, who has Aspergers, has been deemed incapable to decide in his own best interests. Nothing about this man's state of mind or mental capacities is mentioned, other than that a judge ruled him unfit. The man could be psychotic. He could be severely mentally disabled. He could be unfit for tons of other reasons. I think you might be jumping to conclusions here.

The article also doesn't state the opinion that people with Aspergers are incapable of making decisions. It's just a poorly written, sensationalist article imo. If the judge had made the ruling that Aspergers makes people unfit to decide for themselves, you can be sure that would've been written clearly in the text.
 
The article doesn't say that the judge ruled this man incapable because of his Aspergers.

I did also wonder that actually. I felt like I wasn't getting the full story from that article. I don't often associate the ITV news with one sided news stories but this might be one of those exceptions. I think there's more to this story than what they say.
 
I think the problem is that generally there is a lot of ignorance about autism and things ike Aspergers and unfortunately this does not exclude general practitioners.
 
I don't see this as medical or judicial ignorance. It's about manipulating an audience. After all, does anyone honestly think this article was crafted in such a way other than to evoke a visceral reaction from readers?

I'd wager in this instance that the critical reasoning and adjudication for forcing the man to submit to surgery was conveniently- and deliberately left out of the article. Reflecting another example of where media feels they must grab their viewers by the lapels and shake them rather than objectively inform them of the facts.

Let us take another moment of silence for the death of honest journalism.
 
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I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt, for now, and conjecture that the article may have been poorly written and failed to mention some severe mental incapacity or something like that.

The mention of Aspergers may perhaps be more like saying "A man in his 20s, who has red hair, should undergo bowel surgery against his will, a judge has said." A possibly true statement about the man's hair, but not the relevant factor that influenced the judge's decision. Could just be sensationalism on the part of the paper.
 
I don't see this as medical or judicial ignorance. It's about manipulating an audience. After all, does anyone honestly think this article was crafted in such a way other than to evoke a visceral reaction from readers?

I'd wager in this instance that the critical reasoning and adjudication for forcing the man to submit to surgery was conveniently- and deliberately left out of the article. Reflecting another example of where media feels they must grab their viewers by the lapels and shake them rather than objectively inform them of the facts.

Let us take another moment of silence for the death of honest journalism.
i totally agree SD, there is something missing in the article.
i have been in the same situation as him where medical situations have come up and the medical profession have wanted to force me into having procedures done-i was refusing.
if you consider at the time,i was severely classic autistic with mild learning/intellectual disability-the ruling was i had the mental capacity to make my own decisions with support-they dont like taking away your liberties if you even have a shred of capacity and can make decisions with support,in the past i have had 'best interest' decisions made on my behalf as it was assumed i couldnt make decisions which was BS.

the guy in the article simply cannot have a lack of mental capacity from aspergers-its called high functioning autism exactly for this reason-you cannot get diagnosed with aspergers if you have what the UK calls learning disability; you have to be one point or more outside of the learning disability spectrum,so it isnt LD that is causing the lack of mental capacity.
i think this guy has additional severe mental illness and whoever is writing the article hasnt got a clue about ASDs and is basing his opinion on awful mainstream ignorance.
 

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