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.
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.
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.