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There is major controversy online over the case of Lindsay Clancy, the mother who murdered her three children. Feminists are insisting on her innocence, due to post partum psychosis. Men’s rights types are insisting that acquitting her would be a travesty, a blank cheque to any woman who wants to off her kids.
I think the concern in either case is misplaced. If she is found not guilty by reason of insanity, she will not walk. She will avoid the death penalty, but will be committed to an institution for the criminally insane. Whether that will mean better treatment or a shorter incarceration is not obvious. It strips her of her human dignity. Either way, little incentive for other women to try the same.
My general assumption is that the insanity defense is not legitimate. It is equivalent to the old claim that “the devil made me do it.” The devil has no such power; the voices in your head have no such power. If we intentionally harm others, we remain responsible for our acts. In the present case, were Lindsay Clancy genuinely feeling desperate, she could have put the children into temporary foster care, she could have turned to her husband and family for help, she could have checked herself in to a mental hospital.
That said, I suspect the psychiatrists and the pharmaceuticals bear some responsibility here. She turned to them for help, and they did not help. So what else was she to do? Indeed, they fed her drugs that might have made it harder for her to control her impulses, as SSRIs are inclined to do.
