Not as pleasing of a title, but I digress. The subject is unpleasant, controversial, divisive, but there is one thing I think we can agree. Murdering your child is heinous.
Maybe you should stop there. Maybe you can’t handle this one.
Oh, you choose curiosity. Good for you! Let’s discuss the facts that are known and not in dispute.
Lindsay Clancy was a mother of three children. Lindsay Clancy became mentally ill. Lindsay Clancy sought medical help for her psychological issues. Lindsay Clancy was diagnosed with postpartum depression, generalized anxiety disorder, possible postpartum psychosis or bipolar disorder. Lindsay Clancy was given different medications for each of these diagnoses, with different results. Lindsay Clancy was referred to multiple clinicians. Lindsay Clancy’s clinicians did not communicate with one another. Lindsay Clancy killed each of her children, Cora aged 5, Dawson aged 3, and 8 month old Callan, via strangulation. Lindsay Clancy jumped out of a second story window and is now paralyzed.
I think those things are indisputable. There should be no grey area or nuance found in those items. We should all be able to agree on those facts.
But, there are two types of people. Those that think Lindsay Clancy should never see the light of day, should be locked up, and the key thrown away and those that think the mental health system failed her and possibly caused her psychosis.
The first type vacillates between sympathy for Lindsay Clancy, despite the horrific slayings, and those who call for her to be immediately “put down like a rabid dog”.
Amiri King has 474,400+ followers on X, and at the time I placed this, 1,700+ people liked his post. To borrow a turn of phrase from my observations of defense and prosecuting attorneys, “fair to say” he is stating a viewpoint that is agreed to by a lot of people. His sentiments are harshly worded, but it’s “fair to say” that there are more than a few, mostly men, that are making the point that a woman that does what Lindsay Clancy has done is not worthy of breathing air. There are some that are asking people to switch the sex of the perpetrator, and envision the reaction. Thought provoking, I guess.
Then there are the fellow sufferers of postpartum depression that list how they didn’t murder their children. They empathize with Lindsay Clancy, but list how their struggles didn’t involve slaughtering their children.
The other type of person believes Lindsay Clancy is a victim of a systemic breakdown in mental health care or blame her husband Patrick for inattentiveness or worse. They wonder about the hormonal impact of childbirth and the impact of psychotropic medication that may have brought about the psychosis. In today’s court testimony, the blame Patrick crowd was emboldened when it was learned that some of the searches done were at a time that Lindsay was at a pediatrician with a sick child.
The “hang Lindsay” crowd say she doctor shopped, or was trying to get out of going back to work, hated her children, and didn’t take her meds. The “help Lindsay” crowd say questions regarding suicidal/homicidal ideation and other self reporting ones that are used to diagnose and treat mental illness are inadequate.
Doctor shopped or sought help in a system that uses trial and error to treat self-reported symptoms?
You can see it any way you would like. Any way you view this, it’s a tragedy and should lead to changes in how providers communicate with each other with a patient that indicates a desire to self-harm and whose symptoms seem to be worsening.
Facts matter. Emotional reactions that are designed to virtue signal opposition to killing children–who agrees that killing your child is okay?–are just that, signals. No one should think this is okay, any of it.
My favorite chart maker, Brandi Churchwell, posted this on X. It is a list, with dates, of medications prescribed and by whom and when. Brandi takes information and presents in a fact-based way. What do you see? A woman that should be “put down like a rabid dog” or a victim, herself? I see tragedy on every level and want change.
Don't be afraid to engage... 
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