I hadn’t heard of Lindsay Clancy nor the criminal case against her until the trial began over the summer. She’s accused of murdering her children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, who was only eight-months-old in late January 2023 in their Duxbury, Mass. home.
Clancy’s defense has been she had been struggling wirh post-partum psychosis and bipolar disorder. Her ex-husband, Patrick, had left the house to go pick up some supper and some children’s liquid laxative medicine. The children had been found with exercise bands around their necks that fatally strangled them. Clancy had attempted to commit suicide by slitting her wrists and jumping from a second story window. This has left her paralyzed from the waist down.
Now, I’ll be honest. If Clancy wasn’t white and from a coastal Massachusetts town, we wouldn’t be having this debate over whether she was actually having a mental issue as her defense has argued insanity. Yet women of all races have turned out to support her. And other women have spoken out against the support. At the same time, some men are arguing that this sole legal case is just reason to overturn the 19th Amendment which gives women rhe right to vote. I don’t think that will happen.
But it has raised some concerns over women’s healthcare. For the most part, women are less likely to be believed than men by doctors (even women doctors) over symptoms they have. Sometimes husbands and male partners have to accompany their significant others into exam rooms just so they’ll get adequate care.
At the same time, femine hygiene products costs more than basic man products. And women have more products they need such as tampons and sanitary pads. Men will never know much about this unless they have a very close relationship with their partners. Men don’t have menstrual cycles. They also don’t have to worry about the hormone mood swings during pregnancy as well as the depression that happens afterwards.
I’ve only heard of one woman I know saying they had post-partum depression and that was in passing. I know it’s more. It’s still something women aren’t supposed to talk about. During the 2021-2022 season of 9-1-1, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character Maddie Buckley suffered from PPD and even had suicidal thoughts at one point attempting to walk into the ocean to drown. Yet it’s something that is often overlooked by other issues.
Still, I don’t know if this is the one people should back as part of their cause. Today, the judge declared a mistrial as the jury had one hold out juror. Clancy has been in a psychiatric hospital. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts can try her again or they can talk about a plea. Or prosecutors can drop the case entirely but I don’t anticipate that.
Both Patrick and Lindsay have filed medical negligence and malpractice civil suits allegedly she was misdiagnosed. But the court of public opinion seems to already made a decision and it’s divided everyone. And no matter what happens next, people won’t agree with it. If she’s tried and convicted, the appeal process might not uphold it.
Yet regardless, Lindsay Clancy herself has no silver lining. She has no kids. She has no husband. She’s a paraplegic. And it’s very likely she could spend many more years in a mental hospital. Or she could spend the rest of her life in prison. Casey Anthony, Kyle Rittenhouse, O.J. Simpson and George Zimmerman are just s few people who were acquitted in murder cases but weren’t full exonerated.
Then again, John Hinckley Jr. spent weeks, if not months sending letters to Jodie Foster, went and purchased a revolver handgun and then went to the Washington Hilton Hotel on March 30, 1981 where President Ronald Reagan was speaking and shot at him and other members of his administration. He was later declared not guilty by temporarily insanity. It is possible some people aren’t thinking rationally or logically.
We may never really know what exactly happened.
Zane Says 