Britney Spears and Joyce Brown are two women who suffered from mental illness, and both got their rights stripped away from them due to their mental illness. This raises the concern on rights for the mentally ill, and when that line can/ should be crossed.
In the case concerning Britney Spears it is important to note that she did have a close relationship with her mother, but never with her father. Spears father was an alcoholic. In 2008, Spears was placed into a conservatorship because her family was worried about her mental health. This happened after she had locked herself in a bathroom with her son Jayden because it was time for her to hand him off as she only had a limited time to be with her children. This violates the custody order, which resulted in a 5150, “an emergency psychiatric hold, in which a person having a mental-health episode can be involuntarily hospitalized (Farrow and Tolentino, Britney Spear’s Conservatorship Nightmare, pg. 11).” There were multiple other instances leading up to the conservatorship including public
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As Britney was still in the hospital, the was a court case concerning the conservatorship. Spear was unable to give a testimony nor was she questioned. The conservatorship was granted which gave her father, Jamie Spears, was control of Britney’s life, including control of her money, communications, and decision making. Britney had no idea that this was even happening. Typically, when conservatorships are placed, there is a 5-day notice, however in this case that was bypassed, and the conservator did not have any responsibility to notify Britney about the conservatorship. With the conservatorship being put into place, Britney’s phone line was cut, she had very limited access to the internet, she had to have approval from her father to get a lawyer or see a doctor, her father oversaw her money and gave her an allowance each