Suffrage-Disenfranchisement of MH Consumers
Due to Kentucky Constitution 145 (3)
Mental health consumers in Kentucky "the Dark and Bloody Land"-- and all righteous folk everywhere-- brace yourself for stern news: the 'insane' of this Commonwealth have an unqualified disability from voting in this venue! Read the Kentucky Constitution at Section 145 (3), where we are informed that "idiots and insane persons" are (apparently in all instances) prohibited from the right-to-suffrage.
Immediate qualification is necessary for this usage. Here as elsewhere now, "insanity"/"insane" are legal terms-- it is necessary to involve psychiatry/mental-health in determination of this 'incompetence,' but it is not the cause/sufficient-condition for the determination that one is 'insane.' I would say that almost exclusively we associate the term 'insanity' to use in a criminological context, where it becomes necessary to question whether a defendant "as a result of mental illness or retardation {she/}he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality of {her/} his conduct or to conform {her/}his conduct to the requirements of the law" Kentucky Revised Statutes 504.020
I CERTAINLY have no objection to Kentucky's having an insanity defense-- and it would be raw injustice if we had none for such incapacity. But all witting parties know that "insanity" has a common usage, even limited psychological-science usage, and a broader context than the criminalistic setting. We know for example that the terms "insane"/"insanity" are oft invoked in proceedings related to "testamentary capacity" -- the ability to effect a will or contract-- see the Wikipedia article on this topic. But this is a limited usage: these terms are increasingly merely the pop and unscientific and limited-forensic way to specify mental incompetency.
I would counter that NOW-- decades after the closing of the "asylums"-- after the advent of chlorpromazine antipsychotic and the effective mood-stabilizers-- after a large number of us consumers have emphatically demonstrated that we are responsible and contributing and effective participants in the communities of neighborhood, nation, and world-- we can begin to retire this term to the antiquity it deserves. Cruelties inflicted on "the insane" mitigate against the utility of ever again digging-it-from-such-a-grave linguistically.
Accordingly, I tender the following not-too-timid proposal: why not pass a law to the effect that in Kaintuck-- or anywhere-- "insanity" as a word be 100% restricted to use under definitions of criminal insanity-- such as the K.R.S. 504.020 I cite above? It could even be that the other uses of "insane"/"insanity" will then have reason to wane from our vocabularies in time-- although there are societal forces that like to keep alive the-negative.
What if we don't do such an expedient move as to restrict "insane"/"insanity" to the criminal context? To wit, "insanity" can refer to the general proposition that one's behavior does not conform to societal expectations and that one is dangerous-to-self-or-others thereby -- see the Wikipedia article on "Insanity." This is exactly the sort of language that is contained in mental health commitment laws everywhere in this land-- including in Kentucky Revised Statutes for Involuntary Mental Commitment 202A.026
The "bottom line" for me -- with 17 "involuntaries" [essentially for 'shouting' usually]-- and all others who have ever been 'invol-ed'-- run some risk of for reasons good-to-someone for our prior declaration of danger-self/others-- be turned away at the polls under the harder interpretations of Kentucky Constitution 145 (3). This would of course be a political bombshell and nightmare to the power-elite for fire-put-out-damage-control, so I speculate that nowadays this would not occur. On the other hand, I doubt not at all that in Kentucky's murky human rights history this HAS occurred. For prevention, and for "cleaning up the dirty language" from the Books, I think we need-- all responsible folk-- to do something like what I recommend: to get this "insane"/"insanity" thing written restrictively to criminality NOW-- then eradicate its use forever by the substitution of new, evidence-based terminology.
Kentucky is not by any means alone in disenfranchisement -- to some degree or another-- of the "insane" from the right-to-suffrage. Actually, 37 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have such legal-writ encumbering mental health consumers from the-vote. In this 21st century, decades after the Civil Rights provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act-- we must all work toward this happy and just goal.
So as Social Work Matriarch Mary Richmond said, "Start where you are." My allies are perhaps to be found; the NAMIs and other mental health advocacy groups may wish to be vocal about this rank writing in the Kentucky Law. I fancy that I might find help from the Churches; in this regard I think it instructive that almost-to-the-point the local Catholics are in favor of lifting the prohibitions of the not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity for voting privileges-- or so I have rather obliquely had intimation; the Presbyterian Church, USA, has its headquarters just down the street here in Louisville on Witherspoon Street-- they may want to "pitch in" for the civil liberties of mental health consumers. In fact, I think a lot of people would find this issue a lively topic. And it almost goes-without-saying that numbers of civil-rights-mavens, libertarian pols, and the mental health professionals probably could leap-on-this-with-abandon.
So as the lively bunch of Lexington (Kentucky) NAMI like to say "Let's get 'er done!"
--Vernon Lynn Stephens, MSSW
D.S.M. IV-TR # 296.44
Telephone: (502) 561-5419
Anytime for mental-health/social-justice issues.
Email: freethink@insightbb.com
Anytime for mental-health/social-justice issues
posted by Louisville Hermitage @ 2:47 PM
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