So, eleven out of twelve jurors in Massachusetts think Lindsay Clancy is not at fault for strangling the life out of her three young children. I think this alone is all anyone needs to know to understand New England. These are the kind of people who live in this region of the world. From their point of view women cannot be held responsible for murdering their own children because life is just not fair to women and anything they do to make themselves happier must be morally right. They’ll blame post-partum depression, dangerous medications and of course her husband along with every other man on the planet. But not Lindsay Clancy. She was not responsible.
So, we’ve come full circle. Under traditional morality a mother saw her children as her primary responsibility in life. She provided them with life and then milk and she loved them with her whole soul and sacrificed her youth and her health to give them a nurturing and loving home.
And now where are we? Children are a burden and an imposition to women who put off bearing them until fertility is strained to the last remaining eggs and then immediately handed off to “child care” and pre-school as soon as the mother can escape her home for the office.
But even that is not enough. Murdering them is now the new frontier. After all, even sending them to day care doesn’t completely get them out of the house. They still show up in the evening when it’s even more inconvenient. And they still want to be fed and washed and who knows maybe even talked to. No, there’s just one way to really free yourself from these parasites. Just choke the life out of them. Any civilized jurisdiction will understand that it just wasn’t fair and therefore you can’t be held legally responsible for freeing yourself from this biological tyranny. After all, women are the sensitive, emotional sex and the sadness you feel about having to eliminate these living chains is punishment enough. Maybe a year or so in a hospital with beautiful gardens and a kind nursing staff might provide the correct “time out” to show the peasants that the medical profession has sanctioned your return to society completely renewed and ready to take up a better place in society. Possibly as a motivational speaker for other women trapped in homes inhabited by tiny monsters.
From my point of view deciding whether she’s evil or insane is moot. There is no place in this world for someone who could do what she did. If she wasn’t insane, she deserves death. If she is so completely insane that she is capable of committing such an inhuman act then she should be put down the way you would a mad dog. But even from an unemotional, practical point of view, what does a woman who strangled her infant and young children do with the rest of her life. Who exactly does she hang around with. Who is signing up to be her neighbor or friend. What would you talk about with her? Her past? You can’t. Her future? She doesn’t have one. I guess you could talk about her anti-psychotic prescriptions or the latest breakthrough with her psychiatrist. But I’m guessing most people wouldn’t want to. She really is basically waiting for death so she can find the correct level in hell for her variety of monster.
This case is a Rorschach test and provides an effective binary choice. If you see the murdered children as the victims, you’re on my side of the fence. If you have even the least sympathy for the child killer, you’re on the other side. It’s a perfect dichotomy. On one side are people, men and women paying forward the life and love that was given them by raising a family and making the future. On the other side is a woman so self-centered and dysfunctional that she could strangle a three-month old infant just to be free of her human responsibility to pay forward what was given her by her parents. To objectively see how despicable this point of view is just imagine the reaction if a father strangled his three young children. Every woman in Massachusetts would be baying for his blood demanding a way to allow capitol punishment for this one heinous case. But for Lindsay Clancy; nothing but sympathy for the devil. Pick a side.