Her most startling allegation was that her conservator/father had prevented her from marrying her longtime boyfriend, and would let her doctor remove her IUD, thereby preventing additional children. That would be quite an unwarranted personal invasion if confirmed.

Even so, I saw it as just another celebrity story. The problem is that few things are as simple as they seem, and in Spears’ case, I realized that her battle is another example of a man controlling a woman’s reproductive freedom, not the first time where money may be at the root of the problem, and more importantly something we are still dealing with today in broader American society.

During the 19th century, before American women had the right to vote or had universal civil rights, it was not uncommon for husbands to declare their wives mentally ill, have them thrown into mental hospitals, sometimes lobotomized, often in order to control their property (usually inherited) or their fertility.

Postpartum depression was not a diagnosis then, but mental illness due to childbirth was often listed as a cause of institutionalization, according to a recent Time magazine story by Kate Moore.

As a former caseworker at the Division of Family Services, I was quite startled to discover that a number of my clients had been involuntarily sterilized as children, allegedly because they were “slow.” Yet, talking to them years later, few seemed intellectually challenged. Their mothers were poor and on welfare. By sterilizing the young daughters, that cycle of welfare could be broken — at least, that was what I read in several of their case files. It was a horrifying revelation.

Today our state legislators are determined to restrict poor women’s access to birth control within the framework of Medicaid. It is immaterial in the debate over abortion rights: Preventing a pregnancy by supplying contraceptives is not killing a baby. If the sperm and egg never meet, conception doesn’t occur.

Interestingly enough, Medicaid does cover Viagra. Yes, there are medications that are used to initiate abortions, but these are also prescribed for other medical purposes such as ovarian cysts and fetal death in the womb. So, to preclude these drugs under Medicaid would have been another source of reproductive control.

Thankfully, the names of these drugs were removed from the Republican-sponsored attachment to the recent Federal Reimbursement Allowance tax determination, sustaining billions of federal dollars for our existing Medicaid program.

Still, by focusing on one issue, we sometimes fail to see the bigger picture. If we restrict contraceptives and more babies are born, more young women could stay on the welfare rolls. Even without coronavirus concerns, there are many roadblocks preventing the escape-from-welfare treadmill, starting with the need for child care and diapers, the latter of which you cannot buy with food stamps.

Just consider what it would take for a young parent receiving a tiny check from the state, on food stamps, even working at a minimum wage job, who had to buy diapers out of pocket. (Hopefully, caseworkers are referring qualifying clients to the St. Louis Area Diaper Bank.) It’s just unfortunate that we prioritize the rights of the unborn while failing to protect and support the lives that are already here.

As for Britney Spears, according to the most recent information in Time magazine, her professional conservators, her manager, and her court-appointed lawyer were all allowed by the judge to remove themselves from her case — but not her father, who is receiving a monthly stipend and is having his legal fees paid by her estate. Other sources report Spears, 39, distrusts the medical professionals her father hired and thus has requested to be released from her conservatorship without a new medical evaluation, which is not the norm. Time will tell how this plays out.

But regardless of the outcome of her situation, it will not stop the relentless assault on poor women’s health in our state. I regret originally dismissing her problems. We women should stick together.

Janet Y. Jackson is a Post-Dispatch columnist and Editorial Board member.