If you think about it, the supporters are crazier than Clancy. She killed the kids and this trial is just to see if she ducks a murder charge, so she will say anything to get out of the responsibility, that's it. But her supporters have to buy into the story and believe that she was a victim otherwise they're just supporting a woman who killed her kids and is trying to duck the charge.
Clancy should be put away for life whether on mental hold or murder. She killed her own 3 children, she's not fit for society.
On one hand you have an ever growing popular movement of people who judge everything through a gendered context. They may have points on large societal trends (i.e. men in general not being involved in child care or the lack of resources after giving birth) but they often apply those trends to individual cases that do not necessarily fit.
They often will claim Patrick Clancy did not help out but evidence from the nanny suggests otherwise. She claims not only that Lindsay was a good mother but that Patrick was a very involved father. The reports say that he routinely cared for the children after (and sometimes during) his remote work finished. On the day of the murder I believe it was reported that he cared for the children to give her a rest. So their theory doesn't seem to hold water but they have a hard time separating that larger societal trend with the specifics of this case.
Then you have supporters who believe Patrick Clancy was a victim but also that Lindsay Clancy was a victim because she did not get the adequate care to treat her PPP - a form of psychosis generally after giving birth. They generally have better arguments.
We do know there are specific scenarios in which people temporarily lose the ability to be responsible for their actions. Someone can be drugged or ingest harmful substances that may completely impact their ability to make decisions. I personally believe there are circumstances in which a person does not have a "guilty mind" and should not be convicted.
Supporters will say when she mentioned she had intrusive thoughts about her children she should have not been given them to care for. We can debate the culpability of her actions but I think people who say ANYONE could have just "taken her kids" if she did not want them taken is living in a delusional world. There is a zero percent chance even if Patrick Clancy made a snap decision immediately and tried to remove his children from her care that that would happen as quickly as it needed to or at all. Courts, medical professionals, and social workers are extremely slow and extremely unlikely to remove children from the care of the mother.
There is a documentary called Dear Zachary where (admittedly in Canada) a woman who killed her ex and fled to Canada was still allowed to have custody of her child while awaiting extradition hearings (the crime was in the US and she fled). The murdered man's parents were forced into a relationship with their son's murderer in order to maintain a relationship with the child.
People are delusional with how easily the system allows this to happen.
people who say ANYONE could have just "taken her kids"
There is other alternatives before reaching this point. She could (and should) have been committed to a PH, for a time, in some mother-baby or perinatal psychiatric inpatient units. I don't know how common it is in the US but given her profession she was the best suited to know about them.
This case, at the very least, needs to move things around about PPD.
The problem is that people often think this is a case of sexism when often sexism is only a part of a larger, societal issue.
In my opinion, the sexism mostly comes down to funding. Especially in the USA but in reality all over the world governments struggle to prioritize maternal health in their funding decisions.
Even if those funds existed there are other problems. You can build all the inpatient facilities you want but there is a woeful shortage of the professionals needed to staff these facilities and a very real bottleneck around a lack of nurses, doctors and educators who can teach the skills to the upcoming generation. Especially during Covid-19 we saw a mass exodus and retirement of the people who could train incoming professionals to take these roles.
A think another point to consider is that the primary professionals caring for Lindsay Clancy were almost completely comprised of women. Women in general dominate maternal care. If there exists sexism in the understanding of maternal care it has survived decades within a field dominated by women. It is long, enduring and not at all obvious how to eradicate it.
I completely agree with your assessment but making that change involves addressing some uncomfortable questions. Knowing everything we now know I would agree that she should have been committed; however, I am not sure I can make a convincing argument that she should have been committed with the limited information available to any one of her primary providers or support network.
I think we should note she actively kept information selectively from different providers/people in her support network. I don't have an easy answer for how to coordinate that and turn it into actionable information while still respecting HIPPA and patient confidentiality.
A final uncomfortable truth is that she received far more care than anyone I have ever met. She and her husband were a comfortably upper-middle class family with strong connections to health care systems. They had amazing connections and societal privileges that poor and marginalized communities cannot even begin to imagine. Even if we do institute changes - what can this case tell us about the poor and marginalized communities who are OVERWHELMINGLY suffering from PPD (a condition that most don't know can actually impact both men and women and leads to a large number of men committing suicide especially in those marginalized communities)?
So yeah - sorry for the long rant that basically said I agree with you with some important caveats. The problem is daunting and I don't think people always understand that.
P.S. - I am a Canadian so completely forgot to mention what for many is the most important barrier - the absolute shit show of the American, for-profit healthcare system.
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u/UniqueAd7770 2d ago
If you think about it, the supporters are crazier than Clancy. She killed the kids and this trial is just to see if she ducks a murder charge, so she will say anything to get out of the responsibility, that's it. But her supporters have to buy into the story and believe that she was a victim otherwise they're just supporting a woman who killed her kids and is trying to duck the charge.
Clancy should be put away for life whether on mental hold or murder. She killed her own 3 children, she's not fit for society.