CCHR: Involuntary Commitment Is Eugenics Repackaged as "Mental Health Care"U.S. and Europe are expanding coercive psychiatric practices rooted in eugenics, stripping individuals of liberty under vague labels and forced "treatments" condemned as violations and torture by international human rights law.
Involuntary Commitment Is Eugenics Repackaged Psychiatry's system of involuntary commitment is recycling discredited eugenics-era policies—using vague labels and coercive "treatments" A recent federal initiative urges states to funnel homeless individuals and drug abusers into psychiatric institutions as "the most proven way to restore public order." Yet a 2022 Harvard School of Public Health study documented that psychiatric hospitals abuse the incarcerated, using forced electroshock, chemical restraints, and prolonged mechanical restraint—practices violating the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT), which the U.S. has ratified.[1] Across America, 1.2 million people are involuntarily hospitalized every year, about every minute.[2] According to government data, 82% of child and adolescent residential psychiatric facilities use seclusion and restraint.[3] Once detained, individuals may face:
A Eugenics Legacy That Never Ended Far from a new policy, today's involuntary commitment system directly descends from the eugenics movement, which legitimized views of "inferiority"
Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International, says, "Eugenics framed institutionalization as 'humane' while serving social order. Today's rhetoric of restoring 'public safety' by removing the homeless, drug users, or the mentally disabled into psychiatric custody is indistinguishable from that of the past." International Context: Europe Repeats the Same Mistake Europe is now debating an Additional Protocol to the Oviedo Convention, the Council of Europe's treaty on human rights in biomedicine, which entrenches involuntary commitment and forced treatment—the very practices international human rights law rejects. An estimated 38% of those involuntarily admitted to institutions in Europe face coercive measures—forced drugging, seclusion, or restraints—within four weeks.[5] Such practices have caused trauma, lasting injury, and even death. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), binding international law, takes the opposite position:
The CRPD Committee, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and disability rights groups across Europe have condemned the Protocol as a dangerous regression into eugenics-era thinking. The World Health Organization has documented systemic human rights violations across psychiatric institutions, underscoring that coercive psychiatry causes trauma, injury, and death. Why This Matters for America Now The U.S. is at a crossroads:
Eastgate explains: "Psychiatry itself admits it cannot cure any mental disorder. Under such conditions, involuntary commitment is not medicine—it is arbitrary detention under a medical pretext and psychiatric torture." CCHR urges policy makers, legal professionals, and human rights advocates to:
Involuntary psychiatric commitment today is not a form of care—it is the continuation of eugenics under new terminology. From Buck v. Bell in the U.S. to the Oviedo Protocol in Europe, the same rationale persists: protecting "public order" by empowering psychiatrists to strip individuals of liberty and dignity. America now has a chance to reject this failed model and instead lead in advancing non-coercive, rights-based approaches to mental health. CCHR warns: Expanded psychiatric commitment powers—whether in the U.S. or Europe—must end. About CCHR: A non-profit mental health watchdog, established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz; instrumental in obtaining hundreds of laws against coercive psychiatric while advocating for human rights and dignity in the mental health field. Sources: [1] Matthew S. Smith & Michael Ashley Stein, "WHEN DOES MENTAL HEALTH COERCION CONSTITUTE TORTURE?: IMPLICATIONS OF UNPUBLISHED U.S. IMMIGRATION JUDGE DECISIONS DENYING NON-REFOULEMENT PROTECTION," [2] Natalia Emanuel, et al., "A Danger to Self and Others: Health and Criminal Consequences of Involuntary Hospitalization," [3] Sharon Green-Hennessy et. al., "Predictors of Seclusion or Restraint Use Within Residential Treatment Centers for Children and Adolescents," [4] Laura I Appleman, "Deviancy, Dependency, and Disability: The Forgotten History of Eugencics and Mass Incarceration," [5] Dainius Puras, M.D., et al., "Reducing coercion in mental healthcare," [6] www.ohchr.org/ End
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