The home, which was run by an order of Catholic nuns and closed in 1961, was one of many such institutions that housed tens of thousands of orphans and unmarried pregnant women who were forced to give up their children throughout much of the 20th century.

In 2014, historian Catherine Corless tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children who died at the home in Tuam between the 1920s and 1961 — but could only find a burial record for one child.

  • HugeNerd
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    2 days ago

    Religion is the last mental illness you can’t call out or treat. When you have Mike Huckabees et al going around ushering in the End Times, we should have the power to medicate these people into a barely functional stupor.

    • Emerald@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I agreed up until the end. Forcefully medicating people into a “barely functional stupor” is a horrific human rights violation.

      • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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        5 hours ago

        So is allowing someone with delusions to cause mass murder. I’d say that’s even worse, just based on the body count.

      • HugeNerd
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        1 day ago

        It’s not. If you see someone with a clearly broken leg and unconscious, do you wait for the person to wake up?

        • Emerald@lemmy.world
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          20 hours ago

          No, because that person is not able to have any say in the matter (they are unconcious). All we can do is operate in their best interest, by getting them medical help.

          However, a person with mental illness is concious (in this case) and can advocate for themselves and we shouldn’t deny them the right to do so. That would be oppression.

          Do you think all schizophrenic people should be forcefully medicated even if they don’t pose a threat to others? Because a lot of religious people aren’t a threat to anybody. They aren’t all extremists.

          • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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            5 hours ago

            However, a person with mental illness is concious (in this case) and can advocate for themselves

            They can’t effectively advocate for themselves when they’re delusional or paranoid.

            Do you think all schizophrenic people should be forcefully medicated even if they don’t pose a threat to others?

            Nobody mentioned schizophrenia but you. And the assumption was very evidently that the people in question did pose a threat. In the case of Mike Huckabee, an actionable and immediate one.

            And yes, I know involuntary commitments have been horribly abused in the past. But I also know that there are times when such a process is necessary. I know people close to me who would not be alive and had the potential to harm others if they hadn’t been sectioned. And the most severe case wasn’t schizophrenia, it was during a bad bipolar manic phase. Not that there are good ones.

            • Emerald@lemmy.world
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              4 hours ago

              I know involuntary commitments have been horribly abused in the past.

              It’s not all in the past. They are still abused today.

          • HugeNerd
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            19 hours ago

            All we can do is operate in their best interest, by getting them medical help.

            The end.