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From: "Daniel Lesser"
To: Lois Robison
Hello,
I just thought I'd send you a copy of an editorial I've submitted
to the UTDallas Mercury, of which I am sending copies to Governor Bush,
and other elected officials. I wish you the best of luck.
Sincerely,
Daniel Lesser
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Suppose if you will, that the government legislated the punishment of those afflicted with cancer, even to the point of sentencing an occasional cancer patient to be executed. The public is told that we don’t want cancer to spread, and wish to make it abundantly clear that any one who "commits" cancer deserves the stiffest punishment they can get. Now this might strike you as incredibly irrational as well as unimaginably harsh.
Unfortunately, despite the abundant scientific evidence revealing a similar situation with the malignancies of the mind, our government has sought fit in too many cases to punish mental illness in quite a similar fashion, despite the ludicrousness of a "deterrent" effect. Whether out of ignorance of psychopathology, or out of a real politik approach to clemency, Governor Bush has yet to use his powers to prevent one such miscarriage of justice in the case of Larry Robison, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic.
As it stands today, the courts seem to be the last possible venue, and yet, because of past Supreme Court rulings, any saving grace the court might provide could have the catch-22 proviso that Robison stay "insane" in order to avoid execution. It certainly would be interesting to find out what Robison would have to say if he re-emerged from his condition with the aid of medications, only to find himself facing punishment for an illness that both he and his parents sought dire attention for with little success. But certainly it says more for the insanity of the legal system and the gaping holes in treatment from the mass shutdown of mental health facilities than it says for Larry Robison’s being in an accountable state of mind. This is not to deny that some of the most serious of mentally ill can pose a threat to the safety of themselves or others, requiring intervention, but rather to note that those stricken with an infectious disease can also be a threat to others’ safety, yet we commiserate with one, and stigmatize the other.
If Larry Robison had Ebola, and this happened to result in the deaths of five other people, we would be appalled if he was to be executed for it, but because a small minority of the most severe manifestations of mental illness can be so ghastly and threatening, it seems that many have little trouble rationalizing punitive measures. I use cancer as an example, because it is not in any general sense communicable (except through some cancer-causing viruses), and because although certain behaviors increase the risk of getting cancer (although addiction isn’t necessarily a choice), in general no one says, "Grow a tumor? Why not, sounds like fun?" If someone can explain why anyone would want to become a paranoid schizophrenic, a manic depressive, or to have any of the other multitudes of mental disorders, I would certainly be keen to listen. The suffering these disorders can entail, such that for some suicide seems the only release, should give pause to those, who in their rush to blame, want to believe fairy tales about the extent of individual human being’s culpability and volition.
In controlled studies of identical twins raised apart, there has been more than enough data to demonstrate that there is a substantial hereditary component to schizophrenia and manic depression, but it must be remembered that this does not in any way suggest that the other causes are necessarily within conscious control either. A myriad of factors from life stresses to even changes in the seasons, have been implicated as likely contributors to the development of mental disorders. In fact, for schizophrenia in particular, it has been suggested that adverse prenatal and perinatal events could cause sufficient trauma to the Central Nervous System to aid the development of schizophrenia later in life.
When it comes to the science of psychiatry, the jury is out- one is no more responsible for becoming schizophrenic than one is in getting chicken pox as a child. The causes are complex to unweave, but from the empirical information psychiatric science has already gathered at this point, it is utterly inhumane, utterly irrational, and utterly immoral to criminalize illness. It is all too tragic that despite the development of wonder drugs, it is the case that the jury of science has been ignored, and the jury of justice rigged- leaving countless numbers by the Justice Department’s own statistics to rest in the shackles of a new Bedlam- and yet still others to face the ultimate penalty for a crime of Mother Nature.
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