Online Mothers Rally Behind Clancy as Jury Weighs Insanity Defense
Left says
- •Women filling the courtroom and rallying online describe recognizing their own postpartum struggles in Clancy's story, seeing the case as a window into how severely untreated maternal mental illness can spiral when the healthcare system fails to intervene.
- •Supporters emphasize that Clancy sought help repeatedly and was cycled through medications and providers without adequate crisis intervention, raising questions about whether the system designed to catch women like her actually works.
- •Advocates draw parallels to Andrea Yates and other historical cases to argue that postpartum psychosis is a genuine, documented medical condition that can sever a person's grip on reality, not an excuse invented to dodge accountability.
- •The public fascination reflects a broader reckoning with how society listens to and believes mothers describing their mental-health crises, rather than dismissing them until tragedy occurs.
Right says
- •Commentators argue that sympathy for Clancy has curdled into something troubling when women online praise or thank her for the killings, treating her as a martyr rather than acknowledging three dead children.
- •Critics contend that excusing methodical, sustained violence against three children as an unavoidable consequence of inadequate support infantilizes women and undermines the idea that people are responsible for their actions regardless of hardship.
- •Some point to the parallel Dimone Fleming case in New York, where a similar insanity acquittal drew far less public outcry, questioning why the Clancy case has become a uniquely galvanizing cause for online activists.
- •Defense attorney Kevin Reddington's public complaints about cable-news hosts like Hannity and Nancy Grace reflect broader right-leaning frustration that sensationalized coverage and courthouse activism are overshadowing the legal question of criminal responsibility.
Common Take
High Consensus- Clancy does not dispute that she strangled her three children, Cora, Dawson, and Callan, in January 2023 before attempting suicide.
- The central legal question is whether she was criminally responsible at the time due to postpartum psychosis or whether she acted with premeditation and control.
- Postpartum mental-health conditions, including psychosis, are real and serious, even among those who disagree on whether it applies in this case.
- The case has become an unusually intense public spectacle, drawing courthouse crowds, media commentary, and online debate beyond typical trial coverage.
The Arguments
Left argues
Postpartum psychosis is a documented medical condition that can genuinely sever a person's grip on reality, and Clancy's repeated attempts to seek help before the killings raise legitimate questions about whether the mental-health system failed to catch a woman in crisis.
Right counters
Acknowledging postpartum psychosis as real and asking whether the system failed her does not require treating her as a martyr or thanking her for the deaths of three children — sympathy for a diagnosis and celebration of the act are not the same thing, and critics argue supporters have blurred that line.
Right argues
Prosecutors presented evidence of planning — including arranging for her husband to leave the home — that suggests Clancy understood what she was doing, and treating the killings as an unavoidable consequence of systemic failure risks excusing responsibility for methodical, sustained violence against three children.
Left counters
Planning and psychosis are not mutually exclusive; people experiencing severe psychiatric breaks can still follow through on complex sequences of behavior while genuinely unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of their actions, which is precisely the legal question the insanity standard exists to weigh.
Right argues
The stark contrast between the muted public reaction to Dimone Fleming's similar insanity acquittal and the massive galvanized movement around Clancy suggests the outpouring of support is driven less by principled concern for maternal mental health and more by selective identification with a defendant who looks and lives like the activists themselves.
Left counters
Disparities in media attention and public sympathy across cases involving similar facts often reflect documented patterns of race, class, and visibility bias in true-crime coverage, which is itself worth scrutinizing rather than being used to dismiss the underlying concerns about maternal mental-health care that both cases raise.
Left argues
The public fascination with Clancy reflects a broader and legitimate reckoning with how society dismisses mothers who describe mental-health crises until tragedy occurs, echoing patterns seen in the Andrea Yates case decades earlier.
Right counters
Using three dead children as the occasion for a referendum on how society treats mothers' emotional needs inverts the moral stakes of the case, and some commentators argue this framing loses sight of the victims entirely in favor of centering the perpetrator's story.
Right argues
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington's complaints about Hannity and Nancy Grace point to a real problem: sensationalized cable-news commentary that speculates on symptoms and disputed facts can prejudice public perception of a case still being decided by a jury.
Left counters
Concerns about media sensationalism cut both ways — the same courthouse spectacle and activist crowds that conservative commentators criticize are part of the same media ecosystem amplifying the case, and focusing criticism only on cable hosts ignores how the trial became a spectacle in the first place.
Challenge Questions
These questions target genuine internal contradictions — meant to provoke honest reflection.
Right asks Left
“If postpartum psychosis can be severe enough to excuse three sequential, deliberate killings involving physical restraint and a child who tried to flee, what legal or medical standard would you propose to distinguish cases like this from ordinary criminal responsibility, and does treating supporters' celebratory rhetoric as separate from the legal argument hold up when both draw on the same narrative of victimhood?”
Left asks Right
“If your objection is that celebrating Clancy 'infantilizes women' and undermines accountability, how do you reconcile that with accepting the insanity defense as a valid legal category at all — and why does the Fleming case, which involves the same legal standard and comparably disturbing facts, not generate the same demand for accountability from these same commentators?”
Outlier Report
Left Fringe
Activists in the 'I Am Lindsay Clancy' movement and figures like Dr. Noa Sterling (the ob-gyn who thanked Clancy publicly) represent a vocal but likely small fringe—probably under 15% of those sympathetic to Clancy's mental health struggles—who cross from sympathy into overt advocacy or martyrdom framing.
Right Fringe
Commentators like Rick Burgess (Blaze Media, framing the phenomenon as 'demonic') and The Federalist's argument invoking repeal of the 19th Amendment represent an extreme fringe, likely under 10% of the right, that uses the case to make broader ideological attacks on women's political rights rather than focusing on legal accountability.
Noise Assessment
High noise ratio: much of the loudest online activity (courthouse rallies, TikTok conspiracy theories about the husband, viral 'Same, Lindsay' videos) represents a small, highly online, highly engaged minority rather than mainstream public opinion, which is more likely to hold mixed, cautious views about both mental illness and accountability.
Sources (8)
The fate of Lindsay Clancy is now in the hands of the jury. After three days of deliberations, jurors have yet to reach a verdict.
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=67701988&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0" /><br /><br /><p>The Lindsay Clancy murder trial has become a national true-crime spectacle. The Massachusetts mother who strangled her three young children with exercise bands in 2023 pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, citing postpartum psychosis, while prosecution argued the killings were premeditated and sought first-degree murder convictions.</p><p>With arguments complete, the jury has been deliberating since last Thursday with no verdict yet.</p><p>While BlazeTV host Rick Burgess is horrified by the tragic fates of Clancy’s three children, he is also deeply disturbed by the number of women who continue to support Clancy and advocate for her acquittal. On this episode of “Strange Encounters,” Rick highlights a dark shift in the maternal instinct — a shift he sees as demonic.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube"> <span class="rm-shortcode" style="display: block; padding-top: 56.25%;"></span></p><p>“I can't help but think to myself that this — not depression but this psychosis — it feels pretty new,” says Rick. “Women have been having babies for a long, long time.”</p><p>“Now we've gone to the point that we're almost willing to say a mom should not be held accountable for methodically and just horrifyingly killing one child after another, even catching one that tried to run,” he continues, calling it “evil.”</p><p>While Rick acknowledges that new mothers certainly need help and support, he refuses to co-sign on the idea that the lack thereof absolves someone of killing her children.</p><p>“This husband maybe wasn't supportive. You can be frustrated with doctors ... but holding her up as a poster child for postpartum moms and their struggles, I think, is going way too far with this,” he says.</p><p>The support Clancy is receiving from women — many of them mothers — indicates a "ugly shift,” he argues.</p><p>“There was a time when the maternal instinct of a woman would immediately pour out to the murdered children, not the clearly disturbed mother,” says Rick.</p><p>“That’s a shift, and I think it’s an ugly shift, and it’s one that should gravely concern us.”</p><p>What’s behind this, he contends, is undoubtedly spiritual. He highlights a warning from the late evangelical pastor John MacArthur: “MacArthur said, ‘Unfortunately, we're in a time now where people don't even want the church to feed their mind. They want the church to feed their emotions.'”</p><p>But when emotions rule, we become “a lawless society,” says Rick.</p><p>“You can and should, no problem, have compassion for Lindsay Clancy, OK? But you also can demand justice for the three children she [allegedly] murdered. It's not one or the other,” he notes.</p><p>“We can't live in a civilized society when the way I feel about something trumps what the law calls for … and we're already there to a degree.”</p><p>This devolution into lawlessness, he warns, reeks of demonic influence.</p><p>“For us to empathize with Lindsay Clancy more than we empathize with the children that were [allegedly] murdered” is “exactly what the dark forces of the spiritual realm” are gunning for, says Rick, “and that’s a dangerous road to be on.”</p><p>To hear more, watch the episode above.</p><h2>Want more from Rick Burgess?</h2><p>To enjoy more bold talk and big laughs, <a href="https://get.blazetv.com/rickburgess/?utm_source=theblaze&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=article_shortcode&utm_term=rick-burgess" target="_blank">subscribe to BlazeTV</a> — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.</p>
<img src="https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=67701789&width=1245&height=700&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0" /><br /><br /><p>A board-certified ob-gyn has joined the chorus of mothers praising and defending Lindsay Clancy online, posting a video telling the mother who allegedly murdered her three children that she didn’t “know what else [Clancy] could have done.”</p><p>“Hi, Lindsay. I’m Dr. Sterling. I don’t even know if you’re allowed to watch videos like this. If someone can show it to you, I don’t know. But I want you to know that I believe you,” Dr. Noa Sterling said in the video posted to social media.</p><p>“From my perspective as an ob-gyn, I believe that you were over-functioning throughout your entire postpartum period. I am blown away by how hard you were working to get better while also working as a mom,” she continued.</p><p>“I’ve got three kids. I know how much work it is even when you are mentally well. It’s so hard to take care of three kids. ... Hindsight’s 2020, but I don’t know what else you could have done,” she added.</p><h3></h3><br /><span class="rm-shortcode" style="display: block; padding-top: 56.25%;"></span><p>“‘I don’t know what else you could have done other than [allegedly] murdering your three children?’” BlazeTV host Pat Gray comments in disbelief.</p><p>“One of the things is <em>not</em> [allegedly] murdering your three children. That’s one of the things that she could have done is not [allegedly] kill her kids,” he adds.</p><p>Sterling went on to say that Clancy has “galvanized us women in a really powerful way.”</p><p>“And I’m not quite ready to tell my story yet. When I eventually do, it’s going to be because you came first, and you showed all of us that we can be honest and can be real about what we experience as mothers,” she said.</p><p>“Thank you for [allegedly] killing your kids?” Gray asks, shocked.</p><p>“So she’s galvanized a movement to murder children?” executive producer Keith Malinak chimes in, adding, “She says she’s a mother of three. If I’m her kids, I know I’m changing the locks is what I’m doing.”</p><h2>Want more from Pat Gray?</h2><p>To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, <a href="https://get.blazetv.com/pat/?utm_source=theblaze&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=article_shortcode_patgray" target="_blank">subscribe to BlazeTV</a> — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.</p>
<p>Lindsay Clancy's defense attorney criticized Sean Hannity and Nancy Grace outside a Massachusetts courthouse Monday, hours before jurors ended a third day of deliberations without a verdict.</p> <p>The post <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2026/08/31/watch-lindsay-clancys-lawyer-complains-about-horrific-trial-coverage-by-hannity-queen-of-mean-nancy-grace-as-jury-ends-third-day/" rel="nofollow">WATCH: Lindsay Clancy’s Lawyer Complains About ‘Horrific’ Trial Coverage by Hannity, ‘Queen of Mean’ Nancy Grace as Jury Ends Third Day</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.breitbart.com" rel="nofollow">Breitbart</a>.</p>
While jurors consider the case of Massachusetts mother Lindsay Clancy, a New York City judge has found another mother — who also killed her children — not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. Dimone Fleming, now 26, had repeatedly stabbed her sons — Octavius Canada, 11 months, and Daishawn Fleming, 3 — before ...
Horrific crimes have always attracted attention, but the women who have filled the courtroom are seeking something beyond spectacle.
<img alt="lindsay clancy supporters line up along road" class="webfeedsFeaturedVisual wp-post-image" src="https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/clancy-girls-1200x675.png" style="display: block; margin: auto; margin-bottom: 5px;" />If any man on the internet said women are too emotionally volatile to make basic moral decisions like not murdering people, he would be widely panned as sexist -- but Clancy fans are making that exact argument.