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.”
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.