In the context of medical care, adults have an unlimited right to martyr themselves. In the US, competent adults have an absolute right to refuse even lifesaving medical care, to the point that anyone administering it is guilty of a battery.
Can someone suicidal in a psych ward refuse medication? Can prisoners?
It’s very rare for a suicidal person in a psych ward to be declared legally competent to make their own medical decisions. So, as a general rule, no.
Don’t know about prisoners. I know that in many ways, they’re already considered wards of the state, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they did not have the right to refuse treatment.
But if you’d really like to get your knickers in a twist, check out this tale of a Nigerian woman in a US hospital who was put in restraints to prevent her leaving the hospital and forced to have a c-section against her will, even though she articulated very knowledgeable and valid concerns about the risk of infection or uterine rupture should she become pregnant again in her home country where they don’t have good antenatal care. (While it doesn’t discuss it there, and I can’t find the journal article which I’ve read in the past, she was not a US citizen, she was here on a temporary visa, and already had plans to return to Nigeria, so it wasn’t like, “well, don’t go back there” was an option for her.) Also discussed in that article, a woman who delayed a c-section for twins, one of whom died, and she was charged with first-degree murder.
Or this one in New Jersey, where a mother refused a c-section, was found to be mentally competent, labored and safely delivered her infant vaginally, and the baby was taken away, her parental rights stripped and the child put in foster care.
C-sections are a particularly ugly area of refusal rights, because they involve major surgery to one person, while another not-quite-person’s life may be at risk.