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.”
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.