Posted on 06/28/2021 4:09:55 AM PDT by Kaslin
When Britney Spears testified that she’s on birth control against her will, abortion activists championed her case in the name of “reproductive freedom” and “bodily autonomy.” But pro-life figures recognized it as something else: a “severe human rights abuse.”
On June 23, the pop star made headlines after pleading with a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to end the conservatorship that has placed her under her father’s control for the past 13 years. In 2008, after Britney suffered from a public breakdown, Jamie Spears legally assumed control of his daughter’s life and finances. His involvement continued as she released new albums and even performed during a Las Vegas residency. For years, Britney has fought to break free. Now, her struggle is receiving renewed attention.
One of Britney’s more shocking statements came when she told Judge Brenda Penny that she isn’t allowed to have another child.
“I want to have the real deal, I want to be able to get married and have a baby,” the 39-year-old star said. “I was told right now in the conservatorship, I’m not able to get married or have a baby. I have an IUD inside of myself right now so I don’t get pregnant. I wanted to take the IUD out so I could start trying to have another baby. But this so-called team won’t let me go to the doctor to take it out because they don’t want me to have children — any more children. So basically, this conservatorship is doing me way more harm than good.”
Since then, legal experts have confirmed that Britney’s situation is possible – and legal – under a conservatorship.
“Technically, they’re in control of all facets of her life, so yes, it is legal,” attorney Sarah J. Wentz, a partner at the firm Fox Rothschild, who specializes in conservatorships, told Variety on June 25.
In response to Britney’s statement, abortion activists claimed her cause as their own in the name of “reproductive freedom” – and tied it to abortion “rights.”
“Everyone has the right to make these most intimate of decisions of if and when to have children,” Ruth Dawson, the principal policy associate at Guttmacher Institute, told Refinery29 on June 24. “Forcing someone to be on birth control against their will is a violation of basic human rights and bodily autonomy, just as forcing someone to become or stay pregnant against their will would be.”
NARAL added in a tweet on June 23, “The freedom to choose if, when, and how to start or grow a family is the core of reproductive freedom. To deny someone that choice is a violation of their most fundamental freedoms.”
Likewise, Alexis McGill Johnson, the president of Planned Parenthood, announced that same day, “We stand in solidarity with Britney and all women who face reproductive coercion.”
“Your reproductive health is your own — and no one should make decisions about it for you,” she said.
But pro-life advocates stressed that Britney’s case isn’t a “pro-choice” issue or related to abortion. According to Catholic priest Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, “Forcing a woman to wear an IUD when she wants a child is neither pro-life nor ‘pro-choice.’”
He called Britney’s situation “horrendous” and recognized it as “some weird form of modern slavery.”
“If Brittney Spears is well enough to perform on stage, which she has done, she's well enough not to be under conservatorship,” he tweeted on June 23. As a priest who identifies as autistic, he saw it as an issue of “disability rights.”
“If a person is well enough to hold a job (let alone headline a Vegas show), they don't need conservatorship! Conservatorship is meant for those completely unable to take care of themselves in any way, like for a parent with dimentia & a few months to live,” he added.
“It's oppressive when those above you won't let you have children, whether it's the Chinese state with their 1 or 2 child policies or Brittney Spears' dad forcing her to wear an IUD against her will,” he tweeted.
Lila Rose, the president of pro-life group Live Action, also spoke up.
“Why has the state of California been enabling this woman’s abusers?” she asked on June 24. “What Britney is enduring is criminal.”
“Forcing someone to have an IUD stuck in their body is a severe human rights abuse,” she added in another tweet. “No rationale ever justifies it, and using mental health or disability as an excuse is an added injustice.”
It’s barbaric to control another human person’s body – her fertility – with forced birth control. But opposing that should be incomparable to supporting abortion, which always ends a human life.
........in my opinion, she needs and should have her own independent lawyer working for her who is not PAID by Brittney’s father. And, if she want’s to fire him/her/it she should be able to.
The court can monitor payments to the lawyer and the court can oversee Britney firing the lawyer. Too much CONTROL has been given to the father.
Agree, it's her life and if she wants to ruin it she should be free to do so, as long as she doesn't hurt any innocent parties. She won't make it long, another Michael Jackson or Ann Nicole Smith. We allow the mentally ill to harm themselves in our country. Personally I don't think that is compassionate, but it's the law.
Just checked and there are videos on You Tube of Spears in Las Vegas in 2020, 2 shows a day, 7 days a week. It pays to control someone famous.
Was it? I just checked online and all there was was that it was in her phone testimony as something she told the judge about her rehab program.
The control he had over someone as powerful as me, as he loved the control to hurt his own daughter 100,000%. He loved it. I packed my bags and went to that place. I worked seven days a week, no days off, which in California, the only similar thing to this is called sex trafficking. Making anyone work against their will, taking all their possessions away — credit card, cash, phone passport -- and placing them in a home where they work with the people who live with them. They all lived in the house with me, the nurses, the 24-7 security. "
“I didn’t know I could petition the conservatorship to be ended,” Spears, 39, told the judge during a live feed of the hearing. “I’m sorry for my ignorance, but I honestly didn’t know that.” She added, “My attorney says I can’t — it’s not good, I can’t let the public know anything they did to me.”
"Her" attorney.
For his work with Spears, Ingham is paid $475 an hour — a special rate allowed by the court in cases that feature “unusual problems requiring extraordinary expertise.” In 2019, the last year in which full accounting was available, Ingham made about $373,000 for his work with Spears, bringing his total since 2008 to near $3 million. Spears is not known to have questioned Ingham’s fees.
Both things can be accomplished by the court.
You forget that the US is supposed to be a free country. You are free to be eccentric. You can spend all of your money and then live on the streets. You can have 5 different baby daddies. It happens all the time. Notice the only people who end up in conservatorships are multi millionaires.
If the court and her Dad are so worried why not just put $5-$6 million in trust for life? That way if Britt goes through the other $45 million she will always have the interest off the trust to live on.
The girl has bipolar like a million other Americans who are not under a conservatorship. She just needs to take the meds. She’s being preyed on.
Yes she is.
Britney Spears' Courtroom Plea Spurs Questions for Her Lawyer
Had to fix that
Bless your little heart.
Demagoguery. This is not about birth control. It is about her judgment and capacity to take care of herself. A performance on stage is irrelevant to the ultimate question.
iDk any specifics about her case, I don’t follow celebrity much. But I have been involved in various ways with many people dealing with competency issues and guardianship/conservatorship.
When a child or potential child is involved, decisions become more consequential. Furthermore, courts are a sh*tty way of resolving these issues. Judges and lawyers generally have no expertise or competence in making these decisions, but there is no other mechanism. The only
alternative is to let go and hope nobody gets hurt too badly. That may satisfy civil libertarians, but at a great cost when it doesn’t end well.
If you have a position on this matter call your teacher and have her help you express it. 😆
Yes, what better way to live off your kid than getting them declared incompetent and controlling their conservatorship.
Half the country has bipolar disorder. You take a pill everyday. If Brittany didn’t have $50 million Daddy wouldn’t care what she was doing with her life.
It’s really telling that they never got her the help she needed instead opting to control her and dope her out of her mind so they could keep milking the cash cow she provided.
If she has mental issues, then they are enslaving her and most likely making her condition worse by using her to make piles of cash..
It is just sick sick sick
Yes do you see my point?
The personage of a psychiatrist is able to negate her whole life.
Or yours or mine, as was done routinely to believers behind the iron curtain and still is today in Red China.
A psychiatrist is not a random person. An American is not (usually) a political operative in another country.
Yes once this got to the courts the testimony of experts is key. That’s reality.
I enjoy your comments thanks! Sure we are not Soviet Russia ....yet(!)
Sorry to prolong this thread which seems to have been bypassed by now, but I have been working 7-6 and though I get a minute here and there.
Dr. Timothy Benson, her psychiatrist, dropped dead of an aneurysm in Sept. 2019. The #FreeBritney people are suspicious, but I really cannot understand what they are getting at. So he was going to suddenly say she was OK and Jamie Spears bumped him off? That is ridiculous.
Jamie Spears had an ugly altercation with his grandson Preston in September 2019, he was cleared of wrongdoing, but Kevin Federline said “No more” were the kids to be with their grandfather, accusing him of “abusing” the kids. Everybody sees Jamie Spears differently now, especially Britney.
The conservator Britney wants is Jodi Montgomery, and if Britney is not freed at this time, it is my expectation that Montgomery will get the permanent position and Jamie Spears will be out. Montgomery and her husband are thought by Britney and others to genuinely care about her. Currently Bessemer Trust and Jamie Spears are co-coservators.
Her court-appointed attorney has changed his tune, he was saying in 2019 that she was “comatose” but now he disputes that she is “gravely disabled”. She may have other attorneys hired, I don’t have clear info on that only that her father says that lawyers she has hired have “self-serving interests.”
This is the first time in all these years she has spoken for herself. There was a 730 mental health report last year, nobody knows what that said, but you will be thinking that that report will rule the day, and you are probably right.
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