WHY I CHOOSE NOT TO TAKE MEDICATION
by Scott Hoge
(Click here to download this essay)
In response to the requests of others that I take medication, I have written this rebuttal to address the ethical problems of forced medication regimen. I do not belong to any religious group opposed to psychiatry -- in fact, I do not even believe in God -- and I hope that my defense will not be patronized with involuntary hospitalization, forced injections, or bare assertions ("You need to take it"), as I have put a lot of thought into this matter and have come to what I feel is a reasonable conclusion. If any of these actions are taken against me, I may write in further retaliation against the medical community.
My chief complaint concerns genetic inheritance. Suppose I have an illness caused partly by my genetics that can be remedied by a lifelong medication regimen. In that case, I have two choices: take the medication, or don't take it.
If I don't take the medication, my health may suffer slightly more, but I may still be able to function well enough to get married and father children. I will then face two possibilities: either I will be healthy enough to attract a woman, discuss parenting, and have children without medication, or I will not be. If I am, then that will be good enough, but if I am not, then at least I will have no children to inherit my illness.
If I did take the medication, however, then I may end up being able to get married and have children, but I wouldn't know how dependent I was on medication in order to do it. I would therefore call this possible dependence. Now, if I were dependent and I had children, then they could either inherit my illness and also become dependent, or even inherit a worse illness as a result of recombination.
Because I do not wish to have sick children, commit to avoiding having children, or burden either myself or my children with financial obligations to the medical community, and because my past experiences on medication have been unpleasant, I choose not to take medication.
In objection to the preceding argument, the medical community may respond that because my refusal to take medication would either endanger the lives of others or result in a lesser contribution to society from me, I have a duty to take the medication in order to prevent it. In response to this, however, I object on political grounds that the medical community could similarly be said to have a duty to allow me euthanasia on the basis of relatively poor genetics or past diagnoses.
Finally, I wish to add that I find any decision of the medical community to take advantage of poor genetics, the resulting desperation of the gene-holders, and the continuing poor genetics of their descendants for excessive financial gain to be unfair from a humanitarian point of view.
A Word on Psychotropic Medication
Unlike many who are currently suffering in hospitals today and medicated with psychotropics by force, I am well aware of the actions of psychotropics on the human brain, including their actions on the 'pleasure chemical' dopamine, their side effects of lethargy, weight gain, and difficulty functioning, and the risks of developing the incurable movement disorder Tardive Dyskinesia as well as losing gray matter from the cerebral cortex. I am therefore particularly opposed to taking this brand of medication, and if I am forcefully medicated -- as I have been a number of times already -- I may choose to write further in retaliation.
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