Lessard’s legacy

I read with interest about Alberta Lessard in her obituary of April 27 (“Lessard’s case changed laws for mentally ill”).

Something else has to be said about this great woman. Because of this Supreme Court decision in 1971, she accomplished this: No longer, in this country, can women be put in an

institution because LETTERS their husbands do

not want the responsibility of marriage any longer. For more than 100 years, it was easy for a man to go to the priest, complain that his wife was no longer a fit wife and/or mother and get a signature. Then it was on to the physician who heard the same story. It took only three signatures for a woman to be committed to a mental institution for the rest of her life with no hearings on the matter. These three signatures were enough.

I know of this through personal experience. My grandfather did this to my grandmother in the 1920s. When she was gone, he put his four children into orphanages. His oldest son learned well from his father and did the same thing to his wife in the 1950s after eight children. These women were kind, wonderful women who did not deserve this treatment.

There will be people who say they do not like this law because they cannot place their relatives in a mental institution, even when they need help, because they must voluntarily sign themselves in. But there is more good that came out of this law than bad.