Reproductive rights advocates have taken up the cause of pop music icon Britney Spears following her court testimony seeking to end the conservatorship that has governed her money and her life since 2008.

Spears spoke out against the legal arrangement for the first time publicly in a riveting 24-minute monologue Wednesday before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny. Spears said she was being abused and controlled: pushed to work against her will, forced to take medication that made her feel drugged (lithium), required to attend three psychiatric therapy sessions a week (instead of the one she said would help her), and prevented from marrying her boyfriend and having more children. She has two with ex-husband Kevin Federline, who fought her and won sole custody when they split soon after the birth of her second baby within a year. Her mother has said she believes her daughter was suffering from postpartum depression when she began struggling and wound up under the conservatorship mainly controlled by her father.