Capacity

‘Is the ability to hold a fluid, very similar to volume,’ according to Wikipedia.

There is always a danger in the judgment of capacity when those who are discussing it come from a perspective that the pot is cracked, before they know the first thing about the capability of the pot to hold water. So many who stick their spoonful into the capacity debate have no idea of what it is to have their capacity to state their point of view taken from them.

Those who are in positions of power, be they families, carers, voluntary stakeholders, professionals, debate in the general. So very often in their love, they deny the rights of individual out of their convictions and/or fear of consequence of the very capacity they purport to support to wider society.

Love coming from fear or doubt so very easily turns into goodwill. Goodwill in the hands of a convinced, caring person so very often turns to domineering. The moral high ground can be a bog. We need to have the debate regarding capacity but only if those whose capacity is under discussion are leading that debate, be that debate regarding the disabled, the mad community, or euthanasia.

The Catholic Church in the past moral debates in this country, was like an anchor dragging society backwards because we gave the church the kind of respect it never deserved. Voluntary bodies are in danger of trying to fill the void of unearned respect in so many moral debates today. Like the church they resent any challenge to their goodness. So very often those whose capacity is being judged or discussed are rolled out as victims/examples.

If you begin the debate on capacity from a perspective that capacity is lacking, then the limit of the person’s ability to decide is already judged and the individual’s potential to expand in a non judgmental society is gone.

If you begin the debate from a perspective that capacity is an expanding idea to be encouraged, then that voyage is unending as the individual whose capacity is under judgment is the captain/navigator and not a compliant passenger.

Too many open forums take place after the direction of that forum has been decided by the stakeholders who are employed to hold that forum. An agenda decided behind closed doors is hardly an open forum, especially if the destination is already agreed. The Irish College of Psychiatry is holding an open forum on mental health law/legal capacity but they are interviewing/selecting those they wish to partake!

We have seen such a change in how we as a society regard those who are intellectually challenged. It has gone way beyond PC language. This evolution of respect for members of society has enriched all of society. Society now looks to the ability of the intellectually challenged, sees the potential before we see the ‘disability’.

I sat in the Taoiseach’s office last week by invitation of Minister Kathleen Lynch. I listened to an impressive bloke from Kilkenny speak of his joy in his inclusion in society but on the need to hold events not as fundraisers but as a celebration by the whole of society (eg Mad Pride family fun days).

I sat in the UN in 2006 at the talks on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Disabled and I heard a young lady from north Africa with Down’s Syndrome address us in three languages, a bloke from Australia challenge our intellect in the most eloquent fashion.

Those agencies such as Amnesty who are in this capacity debate regarding the mad begin from the perspective that the mad lack legal capacity; but from that beginning the only route is backwards.

Is being normally mad a disability at all? The NDA (National Disability Authority) and others need to make a decision on this. Emotional ‘disability’ in its spectrum may be a curse or a gift. If madness is a disability, then we cannot lock people up based on a disability, it is a breach of international human rights law. I hear no voice of outrage from the NDA regarding Carrig Mór.

If madness is not a disability – and I doubt very much that the mad community are well served by being included in the list of disabilities – then the common law must protect the mad community.

Either way, disabled or not, we as a society can no longer stand over our belief in the capacity of a doctor to legally lock away and force medicate another member of society, based solely on judgment of behaviour.