Baker act only strips rights during confinement. It’s not a permanent thing and that’s Very good. The whole thing of being locked up by accusation alone is awful. And losing rights that way is even worse.
The Baker Act provides for observation, so it doesn’t count as commitment. Theoretically, those with true problems can then be committed if necessary. The problem is that there are few long-term care mental health beds available, so they just release them to the families, most of whom have no idea of what to do with them and are sometimes even afraid of them.
I had a friend whose son had a late adolescent psychotic break, was in and out of treatment and Baker Acted twice, never improved, destroyed the lives of his family and finally, after the second Baker Act detention, really did manage to kill himself, which of course devastated his family.
While we need to have safeguards against committal for “thought crimes” or for political reasons, we also need to have good, humane but effective residential mental health facilities - for the protection of the individuals themselves, their families, and society.