Compulsory care: Conference recording available!
The conference brought together voices from medicine, philosophy, law, ethics, and with lived experience of compulsory care.
Compulsory care brings moral, legal and professional boundaries into focus. The intention is to help, but helping means restricting someone’s freedom. A recent conference explored compulsory care and the intersection between law, ethics and practice.
Niklas Juth is professor of clinical medical ethics
In healthcare and social services, professionals sometimes face decisions that test the balance between individual rights and society’s duty to protect. The law provides the framework and defines what can be done without consent and how far intervention may go. Ethics adds another layer, asking not just can we? but should we? And practice brings these questions down to the human level, where real people must make difficult choices in moments of urgency or distress.
When these perspectives meet, they do not always align. What is legally permissible may feel ethically troubling. What seems morally right may be impractical or even unlawful. And in the middle stands the professional, often a doctor, social worker, or nurse, who must act, knowing that every decision carries both consequences and responsibilities.
“These are tensions that play out every day in healthcare, psychiatry and social services. Bringing together voices from medicine, philosophy, law, ethics, and people with lived experience allowed us to explore these questions in their full complexity,” says Niklas Juth, professor of clinical medical ethics at Uppsala University’s Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and one of the co-organisers of the conference, a joint effort between the Department of Law, the Department of Social Work, and the Centre.
The conference took place on 23 October 2025. Didn’t make it? Don’t worry, you will find the recordings, in Swedish, below.
By Anna Holm Bodin