On Sunday, Fox News reported, “Calls to repeal women’s rights to vote are emerging from the online firestorm over the Lindsay Clancy trial, prompting Republican women to warn that the intraparty rhetoric could hurt the GOP.”
The fact that this article was published by Fox News was itself noteworthy. Press Baron Rupert Murdoch is one of the few remaining centers of power on the right who is strong enough to pick fights with Trump and his MAGA supporters. In recent years, Murdoch’s outlets have carved out a position for themselves as gatekeepers who work to protect the GOP brand from the most self-destructive impulses of MAGA. One recent example of this phenomenon is the decision to fire (or at least take off the air) the firebrand election denier Maria Bartiromo.
The Fox article was also significant for highlighting how the tragic case of Lindsay Clancy is being exploited by the hard right to justify misogyny. Clancy killed three of her children in 2023. Her legal defense was that she suffered from postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder. Eleven jurors voted to acquit Clancy based on this argument, but one juror resisted, leading to a mistrial.
Nine of the jurors who voted to acquit—presumably because they thought Clancy deserved pity rather than harsh punishment—were women; the lone holdout was a man. The hard right has seized on these facts to justify arguments that women are incapable of reason. The Fox article quoted a post on X that made a common argument: “The female jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial are speaking out about their deliberations and disagreements with the sole male holdout. The more they speak the better they make the case for repealing the 19th Amendment.”
Based on legal history Clancy should be in prison. I agree that mother’s need more help, but there’s no way we will ever provide the level of care Clancy received. (every family is not getting a nanny and cleaners to help out.) If she’s found not guilty then that needs to be applied to everyone equally. There are several cases right now that are very simular. We could end up with men and women who killed their whole family walking around free. That’s not justice.
Edit: Letting her even spend the rest of her life in a hospital would be a major departure for how we treated poorer and darker women. The narrative around this whole case has me wondering whose running the PR campaign for Clancy and why? The judge should have sequestered the Jury. I think redu was the best outcome once it turned into a circus.
Asserting that Clancy should be unfairly punished because poor women of color are treated unfairly isn’t the argument I would use.
Yall I’m so passionate about this because how politically and legally dangerous all this is. We so unskilled at strategy and implementing a long-term plan it’s alarming. This is way the fascist are winning. TLDR: Be careful who you choose to defend.
This is the Trojan horse of all cases if I’ve ever seen one. We do not want to have the legal and political compatancy of women being called into question during this Administration and Supreme Court. Roe v Wade was first implemented under the idea of equal privacy. Essentially the decision was, Any America (Regardless of gender.) should be able to see, speak, and receive treatments from their medical provider they believe is best for them without political and social scrutiny. That protection has been removed allowing the government to know about what you and your doctor are doing. We are increasing the gender differences as seen by the law; and that is catastrophic for women. Outside of Transwomen, men are not currently going to the doctor for anything seen as illegal. (Not trying to deminish Transwomen as they are dealing with so much right now. RvW protected everyone.) Now medical information is in the legal interest of the government. Soon anyone taking mental health drugs and who have children can be monitored more closely. Add in Ai’s ability to go over mountains of medical data. This is right out of the Project 2025 playbook.
Im just saying of all the parents to be in prison for harming their children due to psychosis; this women is the least deserving and the message needs to move past her. We must link the genders in this fight or it will be women who lose out.
That’s not what I’m asserting. That’s how the legal system works in cases. If she was found not guilty, going forward there would be massive changes. I’m asking why her? How is the bias of the judge not being reviewed? Is sending a triple murderer regardless of circumstances to a facility with possible reintegration into society safe? Yes, every case is different but we don’t even have the will to feed our people. The solution they will come up with won’t benefit women. It’s going to be more padded rooms and women losing custody for being a little depressed.
Andrea Yates was retried and found not guilty by reason of insanity for killing her children during a bout of postpartum psychosis. This isn’t a novel case in the slightest.
Yes. Which is good. I still don’t think she should be allowed to reintegrate into society because of it. I don’t agree with the death penalty and I want men/women who have other psychotic brakes to get the same judgment. That’s all I’m saying.
She’s not walking free tho. She’s going to a psychiatric hospital instead of a prison.
I know. But that can’t be a set amount of time. She could theoretically get out at some point. And once again, that’s fine as long as everyone else who commits a murder during psychosis gets the same thing. Same situation, same judge, and the judge didn’t even allow that ex-mother use her psychosis as a defense. The only difference was the skin color and economic bracket. Luckily that woman is getting a new trail. What about men who do harm when psychotic episodes happen? Even if we could return to the 1920s way of locking away the criminally mentally ill we are a long way from even that.
If you truly want justice, then what is more just than rehabilitation?
Rehabilitation does not always mean reintegration. I am not saying to throw her in a hole or anything. She still deserves life, love, community, education, etc., just as part of a separate community for those who crossed lines. We are not talking about a simple crime here. I have compassion and understand as someone who has lost touch with reality. I took accountability for those I harmed when I was not in control, and under no situation would I want to be found innocent if I took the lives of those closest to me (hell, anyone, not just loved ones). I personally believe prison is only for violent, sexual, and white-collar criminals. I do wish our prisons were closer to Norway’s. No one deserves the inhumane treatment of American prisons. But once again, I think large cases like this have deeper implications than what is on the surface. Let us be more careful who we choose to champion when injustice is done.
What lines? Why should we say everyone on one side of a line deserves eventual freedom and everyone on the other side is condemned? That isn’t justice, it’s punishment.
massachusetts has extreme leniency in that the prosecution has to prove she was sane at the time beyond reasonable doubt, which is basically impossible, so not guilty and to the hospital she goes is the only outcome I see.
The narrative is because women (and anyone who has gone through mental health experiences like hers and has empathy) see their own struggles in what this lady went through, and people who never went through it think “lol woman get off because she was sad ok then.” I think she’s guilty and it’s absolutely her fault for not leaving when she realized she was going downhill, but I can still empathize with how hard her mental health situation was.
Even when I had thoughts about harming those I truly hated and had the opportunity, I always removed myself from the situation. I know what it is like to lose touch with reality; I was still expected to take accountability after getting healthy and ultimately did. But if I had harmed so many people to this level, there is no way my mentally healthy self would plead “Not Guilty.”
Yeah I mean I can’t super blame a mother who’s extremely anxious and depressed for not wanting to leave her kids. If she’s having those thoughts, knowing the mental state she’s in, it’s still 100% on her to leave, like you said. Sucks that she was even in that position but :\
She remembers taking each of their lives. I don’t understand how a sain person would want to be eventually free after those memories. I’d be too afraid to be around anyone let alone want to continue fighting a legal battle and being on national news. We should be focusing our energy on the tens of millions of parents struggling that still have their children. Those are the heros who’s names should be all over the news.
She tried to kill herself. She didn’t want to be around after the murders.
Yes, and are you saying that attempting absolves someone of responsibility? What is she doing now? Wanting accountability for herself? No. She wants to start her new life and move on. Other parents who know they harmed their family under similar situations accepted their fates. Their stories are far more deserving. We are falling for a wealthy persons paid PR campaign, without seeing the bigger picture.
I will say this until I am blue in the face and die on this hill. This woman does not deserve to be the face of postpartum mental illness. There are tens of millions of parents fighting mental illness who do not harm their families. There are those who have, who are willing to actually have their message be positive and not performative. Championing this particular case will have negative repercussions for parents and children. It will lower the bar needed to take children away from homes and lower the legal competency of women.
I was responding to this part of your comment:
She wasn’t sane. She tried to kill herself. She didn’t want to be around anyone after the murders.
Doesn’t deserve to be the face? Do you hear yourself? Who “deserves” to be the face of a psychotic break? You have a clear misunderstanding of the level of control someone has when they are experiencing postpartum psychosis.
I thought it was between jail and a “loony bin” not jail and freedom?
Looney bin can’t be prison sentence. We have prison with hospital/medical wards. Why is that not acceptable?