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.”
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.