Lindsay Clancy Supporters' Rhetoric Undermines the Case for Women's Suffrage
Source: Rebeka Zeljko. "Lindsay Clancy Truthers Are The Best Argument For Repealing 19A." August 31, 2026. thefederalist.com
The Gist
The author argues that women who sympathize with Lindsay Clancy—a mother who murdered her three children—by blaming her hormones are ironically making the same sexist argument used historically to deny women the right to vote: that women are too emotionally unstable for sound judgment. She concludes that if these women think emotions can excuse murder, they shouldn't be trusted to vote either.
Conclusion
The reasoning used by Lindsay Clancy's female supporters—that hormonal or emotional volatility can excuse her from moral responsibility for killing her children—validates historical sexist arguments against women's suffrage and suggests women who make this argument shouldn't be trusted with the right to vote.
Premises
- A significant number of women publicly sympathized with or defended Lindsay Clancy, who killed her three children, by claiming she was overwhelmed by postpartum hormones/emotions and speaking as if she represents 'all women'
- These supporters argue that hormonal/emotional states can excuse or explain away the moral responsibility for killing one's own children
- Historical arguments against women's suffrage (and property-less men's suffrage) were based on the claim that certain groups lacked the stable, independent judgment necessary for political participation
- Suffragettes originally argued for the vote by asserting women possess the same intellectual and moral capabilities as men
- If women claim hormones can override moral judgment enough to excuse child murder, this is logically equivalent to claiming women cannot be trusted to exercise stable judgment in other domains, including voting
- Women's support for what the author characterizes as 'self-destructive' policies (mass migration, transgenderism) is cited as further evidence of emotion-driven, poor collective judgment
Assumptions
- The vocal minority of Clancy sympathizers is representative enough of broader female psychology to draw conclusions about women generally
- Sympathy or attempts to explain Clancy's actions through postpartum psychosis is equivalent to claiming hormones excuse the murders entirely
- The capacity for moral judgment required to not commit murder is analogous to the capacity for political judgment required to vote responsibly
- Support for immigration or transgender rights policies is self-evidently 'self-destructive' and irrational rather than a legitimate political position
- The historical restrictionist arguments (Adams, etc.) about property and stable interest are structurally comparable to arguments about emotional stability
- One's stated identification with a criminal defendant ('same, Lindsay') reflects genuine belief that the underlying actions were justified, rather than being hyperbolic, ironic, or an expression of exhausted-parent solidarity