Essays in Ethics and Health Policy

About this book

In 1999 New York enacted Kendra's Law, in memory of Kendra Webdale, a young woman who was pushed to her death in front of an oncoming train by a man with untreated schizophrenia. Under Kendra's Law a court can order a person with a mental illness to participate in an "assisted outpatient treatment" (AOT) program. Kendra's Law includes a number of procedural due process protections including the right to a hearing and the right to counsel. Still critics argue that people with mental illnesses are routinely ordered to participate in the AOT program based on no more than "a bare recital of the statutory criteria." The first essay in this dissertation, Outpatient Commitment and Procedural Due Process, reports the findings from a study on procedural due process and assisted outpatient treatment hearings under Kendra's Law. Findings from this study suggest that despite the shift from a medical model of civil commitment to a judicial model in the late 1970s, by and large judges continue to accord great deference to clinical testimony. A second paper, Rethinking Kendra's Law, addresses the ethical dilemmas that arise when courts impose AOT over the patient's objection.