At least an honest question, beyond the hate and vitriol in most of these comments. The answer is that in very few western states is it possible to institutionalize someone against their will. There was a massive shift in the 70's in regards to how the law treated the mentally ill. Prior to this, it had been very easy to force someone into a mental hospital. Usually all it took was the sworn affidavit of a couple family members or their associates, and the infamous "men in white coats" would appear. There were many high profile cases of abuse of this system - it was used by husbands who wished to make their wives disappear (divorce not being legal in many states at the time), heirs wishing to vanish their parents, or rid themselves of elders they didn't want to care for, etc. The state also used it to vanish people it didn't like who had troublesome but not explicitly illegal behaviour. The famous film "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was about this.