In article ,
K wrote:


A friend of ours worked with the son of that nice old man. He was such
a nice old man that his wife had walked out on him and his 3 children
wanted nothing to do with him. To put the record straight - he had
never even been in the armed services. Yes, it was patently clear that
he had mental health problems, but as he was a danger neither to himself
nor to anyone else, he could not be sectioned under the Mental Health
Act and would only receive treatment if he were to seek it on a
voluntary basis and that would be extremely unlikely, considering he
refused help from all and sundry and couldn't see that he had a problem.
I think the man from the environmental health services had the patience
of Job and could not be faulted on what he did.

To continue the biblical analogue, it was extremely clear that even
Solomon would have had trouble deciding what to do! It was one of the
the clearest examples of an ethically insoluble problem that I have
ever heard of.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computing Service,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
Email:
Tel.: +44 1223 334761 Fax: +44 1223 334679