Re "System fails struggling mom again" (Dan Morain, Feb. 24): First, our society does not want to admit that on the basis of mental incapacity, the severely mentally ill have no rights. When you have a physical illness, your mind tells you that you are sick. But when your mind is sick, it cannot tell itself that it is sick.
Second, our society does not want to pay the endless expenses for treatment of the mental illness of an otherwise healthy person. Unlike cancer, an incurable mental illness is not a fatal disease. Severely mentally ill persons die early only because of externally inflicted wounds. Treatment of mental illness is a lifetime expense.
As for rights and expenses in the realm of mental illness, our society is misguided.
-- Peter Henneberry, Olivehurst
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