Aug. 31, 2026
Killer Mom Trial: Why Lindsay Clancy Would NOT Face Murder Charges In Dozens Of Countries
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RSS Feed More than two dozen countries around the world have special laws to prevent a new mother from being convicted of murder if she kills her own child within 12 months of giving birth. That means a jury would not be considering first or second degree murder charges against Lindsay Clancy if the same exact scenario happened in most other western, industrialized countries. It all dates back to the “Infanticide Act of 1938” which allows for manslaughter charges to be brought against a mother who kills her child under a year old because “the balance of her mind was disturbed by reason of her not having fully recovered from the effect of gibing birth to the child.”
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Monday, August 31st, and as we wait to hear the verdict in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial, it is amazing to go back, quite frankly, hundreds of years and see how societies have had the exact same struggle that we're having. What do you do with a woman who kills her own kids? And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. This is going to be a fascinating episode because, Rose, we've been doing some fascinating history reading this morning. We haven't known what to do with women and postpartum mental health ever.
00:00:36
Speaker 2: And we still don't, apparently. If any of you all listened to the trial the way we did, I think that's a fairly good way to look at it based on the best minds in this country. They still couldn't reach a consensus. So we don't know enough as a country. But when you look at other countries, they've certainly taken a much different tactic when it comes to how we view women who kill women. their children.
00:01:05
Speaker 1: And a lot of folks have taken the lead. A lot of folks, I say a lot of countries is what I mean by that, have taken the lead of the UK. That makes sense, right? A lot of societies have based on what they built there with their laws. And yes, there is an infanticide law that has been on the books in the UK for quite some time that took a while to develop. But Robes, in reading this history, I'm floored to see that they're having the same debates, or we are having the same debates today that they were having then. Just how responsible is a woman when she kills her kids? Just how mentally disturbed are women, potentially, after they give birth? And for how long? It was one of the key arguments in the Lindsay Clancy trial. Like, how long after birth does it count as her being mentally disturbed? Well, they were having that debate hundreds of years ago.
00:01:56
Speaker 2: And that is crazy to think about. Yes, so much was made in court by some of these psychiatrists that because it had been eight months since Lindsay Clancy had given birth to her last child, she wouldn't be technically considered postpartum. Too much time had passed. It was why she wasn't allowed into certain programs within the hospital when she was seeking help because she didn't qualify. But look, it's fascinating to see that the UK and dozens of other countries actually create a 12-month period. period of time where they consider a woman in postpartum. And that is something that I guess in this country we haven't landed on.
00:02:39
Speaker 1: So yes, folks, it is the case that there are at least 20 plus countries, mostly industrialized countries, that have laws on the books that look at a woman who has killed her child and sometimes will automatically shift from murder to manslaughter if that child is under a year old. You heard that correctly. If she happened to be on trial and had done this in the UK, in Australia, in Brazil, in Colombia, in Germany, in Greece, in New Zealand, in Korea, and a bunch of other places, Robes, she would be treated much differently by the legal system and, I guess, Robes, probably by the public. We're having a debate about this because we haven't necessarily had enough of these debates over the years. They've been having these for hundreds of years in some places like the UK.
00:03:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's fair to say. As you just pointed out, if Lindsay Clancy had committed this exact same crime in another country, she would almost certainly not be facing murder charges. Period. Which is remarkable.
00:03:45
Speaker 1: Look, the judge added it at the end and the prosecution fought it. They didn't want manslaughter to be an option. It's automatically... an option, and the only option in some other places based on their laws. A little history lesson here. Let's go back to the UK. Go back to England in particular, where they had law. Robes, it was automatic. A mother killed her child. The only sentence that she could get was death. Okay? The only one available. Now, Robes, this was interesting to see, but back then, you think about that. Well, that's not right to the mother. That's not... They were trying... It was a different society. When you stop and think about it, oh, this makes sense. A lot of these were unwed mothers, unwed women who were trying to conceal a pregnancy, who were trying to hide the fact that they had gotten pregnant. Robes, women who knew the shame that came with in society and they knew the cost that came with in society. That's desperation. That's different. Robes, they were trying to cut down on that initially.
00:04:40
Speaker 2: Right.
00:04:41
Speaker 1: That makes sense.
00:04:41
Speaker 2: Which does make sense because, yes, it wasn't just shame and you've become a social pariah. You literally would be cast off by your family, by your community, and have no way of actually living. taking care of yourself or your child. So yes, a lot of these women felt like they had no other choice than to hide the result of perhaps, yes, having sex outside of marriage.
00:05:06
Speaker 1: So under King James back in 1624, they came up with this act. It's called an act to prevent the destroying and murdering of bastard children. That is what it was called. I didn't recall that murdering was the old way of saying murdering, but murdering. An act to prevent the destroying and murdering of bastard children. 1624, which is really, Robes, a lot of folks look at this and say this is an atrocity, but still it kind of got a debate or a legal framework that brings us up to today. We will explain. But, Robes, it's kind of fascinating. The text of that act back then makes clear what should happen to mothers who have babies outside of wedlock and who end up killing those babies.
00:05:51
Speaker 2: Yes, it states, in every such case, the said mother, so offending, shall suffer death as in case of murder, except such mother can make proof by one witness at the least that the child whose death was by her, so intended to be concealed, was born dead.
00:06:10
Speaker 1: The only way you can get out of this is to have a witness there that saw the baby come out dead. That was the law. Otherwise, you're guilty. The only sentence is death. Robes, we look at how we're treating women now and watching this Lindsay Clancy case. Holy hell. We would have had an uphill climb for a long time.
00:06:31
Speaker 2: Yes, it reminds me of just the whole Salem witch trials where, yes, if you sank, well, you died because you were innocent, but you died. But if you didn't sink, right, then that means you were a witch, so you were stoned or hanged or whatever they did, burned alive at the stake. But, yes, you were damned if you did, damned if you didn't.
00:06:52
Speaker 1: One of the first laws ever on the books having to do with mothers killing their children, you had to have a witness there. When the baby was born. Otherwise, it's assumed you kill the baby and the only sentence is death. My goodness. All right, so you move forward. They finally repeal that one, what, 170 years later in 1803. They finally get rid of that one. So up until 1921, Robes, it was kind of a free-for-all, nothing on the books. So Edith Moore comes along in 1921. This was a 21-year-old woman who was unwed. It was a mother in the UK. She gave birth. The baby died. She was sentenced to death. At that point, the death penalty was mandatory. Now, this became a public sensation. How do you compare it to what we're going through and seeing now with Lindsay Clancy? Who knows? But this such public sentiment came around her. They eventually repealed. She got out of prison, repealed that death penalty. And this was what led to the Infanticide Act of 1922, which eliminated. the death penalty for women who killed their newly born kids. Now, that reduced the charge for them to manslaughter. So here's the problem with that one, Robes. Newly born.
00:08:01
Speaker 2: What does that mean? How long do you give women some space that something else could have been going on? And that's kind of what we're still talking about to this day.
00:08:14
Speaker 1: What's the time frame, babe? Is it six weeks? Is it eight weeks? They threw out a year at some point. So this became, well, yes, people applauded. Infanticide Act of 1922. Sounds great. Women will no longer be held to the death penalty if they kill the newly born kids. So, Roms, what happened, though, and I don't know if we're seeing this now, please do tell. But after that case and after that law, you still had women who could be sentenced to death for killing their kids if it wasn't determined they were newly born children. But then juries and judges stopped enforcing it. Juries and judges wouldn't give the women. They said some women were clearly guilty. Juries came back not guilty because they didn't want the women to get the death penalty. They still thought it wasn't fair. And they thought newly born can go up to six weeks, eight weeks, six months. But the law did make it clear. And this concept of the black cap farce, I didn't remember this from school. But when a judge back then gave out the death penalty, he had to put on a black cap. Very ominous and very chilling. Women were still getting the death penalty because he didn't have a choice but to do so, the judges. But they never carried through on the death penalty. Robes, it was 50 plus years that people were getting sentenced and they never carried out the death penalty. So they said this is just a joke. It's a farce. A black cap farce. Look that up if you get a chance, folks.
00:09:37
Speaker 2: A black cap farce. I've never heard of that before.
00:09:39
Speaker 1: I've never heard of it, but it is a real thing. But Robes, are we seeing some of these same arguments when public sentiment changed? More consideration for women being the victims of men.
00:09:51
Speaker 2: Yes, because what responsibility do men carry or hold when it comes to an unwanted pregnancy, an unwanted child? They're held to zero standards.
00:10:03
Speaker 1: Men not being held accountable. And I thought about Patrick Clancy. Don't get me wrong, nobody suggests, I.
00:10:09
Speaker 2: Know there's some conspiracy theories.
00:10:12
Speaker 1: But if you're still having just a reasonable person can have a conversation ropes and say, how did he miss this? Like, where was his responsibility in not seeing his wife was in this much trouble?
00:10:21
Speaker 2: Why did he think it was okay to leave his kids alone with somebody who was clearly mentally unstable? And I think that's fair to say he absolutely knew, was aware of, that his wife was mentally unstable.
00:10:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, and who knows how bad and where responsibility lies, but still, it was interesting to see that same conversation still happening. Also, Rob, the other, there was no consideration at the time. What about women who were victims of sexual violence? They could be executed for getting rid of a child that came about because of sexual violence. Isn't that crazy? Yes.
00:10:57
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:10:57
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy?
00:10:58
Speaker 2: And I'm assuming at that point abortions weren't allowed. So basically if you were raped or sexually violated against your will and a child was produced.
00:11:10
Speaker 1: What are your options?
00:11:11
Speaker 2: You have none. or you didn't have any at that point.
00:11:13
Speaker 1: Death was literally on the table for these women back then. So now, here we go, this act of 1922, where we don't know for sure what newly born means, comes along Mary O'Donohue in 1927, her case in which she was convicted of murdering her 35-day-old child. So here we go, this sparked a debate. Is that newly born or not? And because of that case, it started some momentum, and they finally got to the Infanticide Act of 1938. which then designates manslaughter for mothers who kill their kids, Robes, who are under a year old. That is still on the books. Robes, it's a year for them.
00:11:53
Speaker 2: Which means Lindsay Clancy would have fallen within that timeline that was established in the UK in 1938, almost 100 years ago.
00:12:02
Speaker 1: It's crazy, isn't it?
00:12:03
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:12:04
Speaker 1: So now, go to the Infanticide Act. Robes, these are chilling words of this thing that is on the books, but this is the actual text of this act that's been on the books for a hundred years, just about over in the UK.
00:12:22
Speaker 2: Where a woman by any willful act or omission causes the death of her child, being a child under the age of 12 months, but at the time of the act, The balance of her mind was disturbed by reason of her not having fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to the child or by reason of the effect of lactation consequent upon the birth of the child.
00:12:49
Speaker 1: Then she shall be guilty of felony. infanticide and may for such offense be dealt with and punished as if she had been guilty of the offense of manslaughter of the child. Robes, the idea that her mind was disturbed by reason of her not having fully recovered from childbirth.
00:13:06
Speaker 2: Yes. What? I mean, that's basically postpartum. Yes. Postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, postpartum psychosis, basically any sort of mental disorder that, that, basically evolves after the birth of a child based on some wacky hormonal responses that many women have experienced in varying degrees. But yes, there are extreme cases, and this is acknowledging this. This is acknowledging this almost 100 years ago, and yet we have been watching in a Massachusetts courtroom that debate rage on among forensic psychiatrists who have spent their lives in studying mental health. Now, I say mental health because many of these folks, the experts, have not spent that much time studying the mental health of postpartum women. And that's the crazy part about this all.
00:14:05
Speaker 1: Robes, you just said, used the word, you said these laws, 100 years old, acknowledge. But stay here, folks. The problem is that they acknowledge, but don't fully explain what happens to women. Stay here.
00:14:30
Speaker 2: Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. As we await, at the time of this recording, the fate of Lindsay Clancy, it remains in the hands of a jury of 12. They have spent hours and hours deliberating. We're recording this on day three of deliberations, but it is fascinating to go back nearly 100 years and recognize this debate was going on In the UK, which led to changes in laws that we still don't have here in this country, protecting women for a month, I'm sorry, a full year after giving birth from actually facing murder charges if they end up killing their kids. And they've established this law, but there really is still no explanation as to why this may happen to women. They recognize that it can happen to women, but the why is still up in the air.
00:15:26
Speaker 1: Is the why offensive to you? Because, Beck, the way researchers have talked about this, they are essentially saying women go mad. They temporarily lose it. Like, mad is a word that they use. They acknowledge that something happens physiologically to a woman that has to do with her being a woman and her having a baby. We can't explain it all, but we know it's there, and we're going to put a law in the books. Robes, we clearly know so much more about postpartum psychosis and depression now than we did then, scientifically speaking.
00:15:55
Speaker 2: I guess, but it didn't feel like we did when I watched that trial today or the past few weeks. Every day when I was watching different psychiatrists get up, I wasn't convinced that we know more now than we did then. It seems like we don't know anything now. My only experience is that I fully recognize as a pregnant woman that while I was pregnant, I had emotions that made me feel like I was going crazy, quick to anger. There's this massive mama bear defense mechanism that just raged. Someone looks at me the wrong way. I would be unnecessarily angry. And I kind of would say, well, this is biology. I'm protecting the child within me. Any perceived threat, whether it was real or not, I overreacted to. So if that can happen while we're pregnant, after we give birth to these babies, and for every mother, it's different. And I would say for every pregnancy, it's different. I had two, so I had two different experiences. So I just feel like any woman who's gone through this would recognize, yeah, your hormones and absolutely change and fluctuate and go up and down and all around. And yeah, you feel like you're going crazy sometimes.
00:17:06
Speaker 1: Okay, but that's not, here we are.
00:17:09
Speaker 2: I never felt homicidal.
00:17:10
Speaker 1: We're having this debate, but can we tell a jury, hey, you got to give her a break because, you know, she was pregnant and she's going a little crazy. It's got to be more than that. But I'm saying for the UK, a hundred years ago, we don't need more than that. We have evidence that something is happening, even though we don't have a full explanation of why but this is happening and we ain't ignoring it robes i find that to be fascinating but how where's the balance baby at what point do you say she's criminally responsible or not we don't know how to deal with women in postpartum depression and psychosis we just don't and it's all over the place in the world here's the thing robes uh i i pulled this out from one of the reports um pathologize why pathologize women's acts of violence That was an interesting argument. I thought that was a hell of a way to put it. That is a criticism. Why are we putting it on a woman's pathology? Why are we putting it some way into physiology? Why are we putting into some way, some dynamic that's unique to her, to where we give her a pass for an act of violence?
00:18:18
Speaker 2: So who wrote that, a man or a woman? I'm curious.
00:18:21
Speaker 1: I can't remember.
00:18:22
Speaker 2: But I'm interested because to me, look, and again- It's so fascinating that every woman has a different reaction to the Lindsay Clancy case and even this idea that women should be treated differently if they kill their children within a certain period of time after giving birth. I don't know. My experience is that I leave so much space for that to actually being out of her control. Just some of the strong hormonal feelings I felt that were feelings I hadn't been used to or I haven't experienced since, I give space for the fact that, yes, there is a range of intensity based on your brain chemistry and your experiences. And why shouldn't we? Why wouldn't we? give women at least consideration when we know that pregnancy hormones are real.
00:19:14
Speaker 1: I think language matters. You just said consideration. Some say a pass, and it sounds different.
00:19:20
Speaker 2: I agree. I don't think it's a pass. I think it's being willing to look for evidence that suggests that this woman isn't choosing this, that there are actual identifiable hormonal changes and shifts that can actually create a situation in which a woman would do something she would never have done if she hadn't been under the influence of these raging hormones. All right.
00:19:51
Speaker 1: That's out of her control.
00:19:51
Speaker 2: Right?
00:19:53
Speaker 1: The raging hormones are out of her control. Yes. But folks have gone to the arguments. Yes, people have made terrible acts and killed people when they're under the influence of this, this, or this. Under this drug or that drug. They've chosen those drugs. I'm saying that completely. But... You're out of control. You're out of control. What's an excuse for being out of control? I don't know. I actually do not know that. And that's the debate. And I don't think it should be lumped in with people under the influence of alcohol. This is a totally different thing. What I'm just saying, some of the arguments and things people keep pushing back on. The last thing I'll leave you with, Robes, I was blown away to see that the Infanticide Act we're talking about, 1922, 1938, the original one first came about, Robes. It failed the first proposal. said it should be up to eight years that the child, since childbirth, that a woman should be considered robes still in that postnatal or postpartum, like, dangerous situation until the kid is eight. And so they originally, in that law, instead of newly born or up to one year, up to eight years, they were suggesting that a woman should be still given consideration for robes. childbirth and she hasn't recovered from it yet.
00:21:14
Speaker 2: Wow. I don't, I don't know. I'd have to see the science behind that before I got my head around that. I can't imagine that being the case. Look, I understand you add the hormones to sleep, sleeplessness. which is what a lot of folks have pointed to because the insomnia that Lindsay Clancy talked about, two straight days of not sleeping in addition to postpartum hormonal issues. Now you've got a recipe for disaster where you've got insomnia, which absolutely leads to psychosis on top of any sort of postpartum depression, anxiety, or psychosis that could be at play as well. So this is complicated. And I just think that This has to be, this isn't a one size fits all. This isn't a black or white situation. I do think we have to treat each case differently and separately, but this should absolutely be considered. And like, I do think consideration versus a pass. I don't think we're looking to excuse women who murder their kids. I think we're trying to understand them and actually perhaps Not rush to say what an evil, horrible monster, but maybe, maybe, maybe, just maybe we can understand what women go through mentally, physically, physiologically after giving birth that could help us all make better moms, keep our children safe. But just to point the finger and say, you're the outlier, you're the anomaly. I don't think that's a safe way to go forward. That's not a way to prevent this from happening again.
00:22:42
Speaker 1: We will see what will happen, what this jury will do. We are on verdict watch for the rest of who knows how long today. But the jury is officially in and deliberating this morning. But something else we want to throw into the debate, a debate that clearly now has been going on for hundreds of years. And with that, we appreciate you talking to us or listening to us, I should say. I'm TJ. That's Robes. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Monday, August 31st, and as we wait to hear the verdict in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial, it is amazing to go back, quite frankly, hundreds of years and see how societies have had the exact same struggle that we're having. What do you do with a woman who kills her own kids? And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. This is going to be a fascinating episode because, Rose, we've been doing some fascinating history reading this morning. We haven't known what to do with women and postpartum mental health ever.
00:00:36
Speaker 2: And we still don't, apparently. If any of you all listened to the trial the way we did, I think that's a fairly good way to look at it based on the best minds in this country. They still couldn't reach a consensus. So we don't know enough as a country. But when you look at other countries, they've certainly taken a much different tactic when it comes to how we view women who kill women. their children.
00:01:05
Speaker 1: And a lot of folks have taken the lead. A lot of folks, I say a lot of countries is what I mean by that, have taken the lead of the UK. That makes sense, right? A lot of societies have based on what they built there with their laws. And yes, there is an infanticide law that has been on the books in the UK for quite some time that took a while to develop. But Robes, in reading this history, I'm floored to see that they're having the same debates, or we are having the same debates today that they were having then. Just how responsible is a woman when she kills her kids? Just how mentally disturbed are women, potentially, after they give birth? And for how long? It was one of the key arguments in the Lindsay Clancy trial. Like, how long after birth does it count as her being mentally disturbed? Well, they were having that debate hundreds of years ago.
00:01:56
Speaker 2: And that is crazy to think about. Yes, so much was made in court by some of these psychiatrists that because it had been eight months since Lindsay Clancy had given birth to her last child, she wouldn't be technically considered postpartum. Too much time had passed. It was why she wasn't allowed into certain programs within the hospital when she was seeking help because she didn't qualify. But look, it's fascinating to see that the UK and dozens of other countries actually create a 12-month period. period of time where they consider a woman in postpartum. And that is something that I guess in this country we haven't landed on.
00:02:39
Speaker 1: So yes, folks, it is the case that there are at least 20 plus countries, mostly industrialized countries, that have laws on the books that look at a woman who has killed her child and sometimes will automatically shift from murder to manslaughter if that child is under a year old. You heard that correctly. If she happened to be on trial and had done this in the UK, in Australia, in Brazil, in Colombia, in Germany, in Greece, in New Zealand, in Korea, and a bunch of other places, Robes, she would be treated much differently by the legal system and, I guess, Robes, probably by the public. We're having a debate about this because we haven't necessarily had enough of these debates over the years. They've been having these for hundreds of years in some places like the UK.
00:03:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's fair to say. As you just pointed out, if Lindsay Clancy had committed this exact same crime in another country, she would almost certainly not be facing murder charges. Period. Which is remarkable.
00:03:45
Speaker 1: Look, the judge added it at the end and the prosecution fought it. They didn't want manslaughter to be an option. It's automatically... an option, and the only option in some other places based on their laws. A little history lesson here. Let's go back to the UK. Go back to England in particular, where they had law. Robes, it was automatic. A mother killed her child. The only sentence that she could get was death. Okay? The only one available. Now, Robes, this was interesting to see, but back then, you think about that. Well, that's not right to the mother. That's not... They were trying... It was a different society. When you stop and think about it, oh, this makes sense. A lot of these were unwed mothers, unwed women who were trying to conceal a pregnancy, who were trying to hide the fact that they had gotten pregnant. Robes, women who knew the shame that came with in society and they knew the cost that came with in society. That's desperation. That's different. Robes, they were trying to cut down on that initially.
00:04:40
Speaker 2: Right.
00:04:41
Speaker 1: That makes sense.
00:04:41
Speaker 2: Which does make sense because, yes, it wasn't just shame and you've become a social pariah. You literally would be cast off by your family, by your community, and have no way of actually living. taking care of yourself or your child. So yes, a lot of these women felt like they had no other choice than to hide the result of perhaps, yes, having sex outside of marriage.
00:05:06
Speaker 1: So under King James back in 1624, they came up with this act. It's called an act to prevent the destroying and murdering of bastard children. That is what it was called. I didn't recall that murdering was the old way of saying murdering, but murdering. An act to prevent the destroying and murdering of bastard children. 1624, which is really, Robes, a lot of folks look at this and say this is an atrocity, but still it kind of got a debate or a legal framework that brings us up to today. We will explain. But, Robes, it's kind of fascinating. The text of that act back then makes clear what should happen to mothers who have babies outside of wedlock and who end up killing those babies.
00:05:51
Speaker 2: Yes, it states, in every such case, the said mother, so offending, shall suffer death as in case of murder, except such mother can make proof by one witness at the least that the child whose death was by her, so intended to be concealed, was born dead.
00:06:10
Speaker 1: The only way you can get out of this is to have a witness there that saw the baby come out dead. That was the law. Otherwise, you're guilty. The only sentence is death. Robes, we look at how we're treating women now and watching this Lindsay Clancy case. Holy hell. We would have had an uphill climb for a long time.
00:06:31
Speaker 2: Yes, it reminds me of just the whole Salem witch trials where, yes, if you sank, well, you died because you were innocent, but you died. But if you didn't sink, right, then that means you were a witch, so you were stoned or hanged or whatever they did, burned alive at the stake. But, yes, you were damned if you did, damned if you didn't.
00:06:52
Speaker 1: One of the first laws ever on the books having to do with mothers killing their children, you had to have a witness there. When the baby was born. Otherwise, it's assumed you kill the baby and the only sentence is death. My goodness. All right, so you move forward. They finally repeal that one, what, 170 years later in 1803. They finally get rid of that one. So up until 1921, Robes, it was kind of a free-for-all, nothing on the books. So Edith Moore comes along in 1921. This was a 21-year-old woman who was unwed. It was a mother in the UK. She gave birth. The baby died. She was sentenced to death. At that point, the death penalty was mandatory. Now, this became a public sensation. How do you compare it to what we're going through and seeing now with Lindsay Clancy? Who knows? But this such public sentiment came around her. They eventually repealed. She got out of prison, repealed that death penalty. And this was what led to the Infanticide Act of 1922, which eliminated. the death penalty for women who killed their newly born kids. Now, that reduced the charge for them to manslaughter. So here's the problem with that one, Robes. Newly born.
00:08:01
Speaker 2: What does that mean? How long do you give women some space that something else could have been going on? And that's kind of what we're still talking about to this day.
00:08:14
Speaker 1: What's the time frame, babe? Is it six weeks? Is it eight weeks? They threw out a year at some point. So this became, well, yes, people applauded. Infanticide Act of 1922. Sounds great. Women will no longer be held to the death penalty if they kill the newly born kids. So, Roms, what happened, though, and I don't know if we're seeing this now, please do tell. But after that case and after that law, you still had women who could be sentenced to death for killing their kids if it wasn't determined they were newly born children. But then juries and judges stopped enforcing it. Juries and judges wouldn't give the women. They said some women were clearly guilty. Juries came back not guilty because they didn't want the women to get the death penalty. They still thought it wasn't fair. And they thought newly born can go up to six weeks, eight weeks, six months. But the law did make it clear. And this concept of the black cap farce, I didn't remember this from school. But when a judge back then gave out the death penalty, he had to put on a black cap. Very ominous and very chilling. Women were still getting the death penalty because he didn't have a choice but to do so, the judges. But they never carried through on the death penalty. Robes, it was 50 plus years that people were getting sentenced and they never carried out the death penalty. So they said this is just a joke. It's a farce. A black cap farce. Look that up if you get a chance, folks.
00:09:37
Speaker 2: A black cap farce. I've never heard of that before.
00:09:39
Speaker 1: I've never heard of it, but it is a real thing. But Robes, are we seeing some of these same arguments when public sentiment changed? More consideration for women being the victims of men.
00:09:51
Speaker 2: Yes, because what responsibility do men carry or hold when it comes to an unwanted pregnancy, an unwanted child? They're held to zero standards.
00:10:03
Speaker 1: Men not being held accountable. And I thought about Patrick Clancy. Don't get me wrong, nobody suggests, I.
00:10:09
Speaker 2: Know there's some conspiracy theories.
00:10:12
Speaker 1: But if you're still having just a reasonable person can have a conversation ropes and say, how did he miss this? Like, where was his responsibility in not seeing his wife was in this much trouble?
00:10:21
Speaker 2: Why did he think it was okay to leave his kids alone with somebody who was clearly mentally unstable? And I think that's fair to say he absolutely knew, was aware of, that his wife was mentally unstable.
00:10:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, and who knows how bad and where responsibility lies, but still, it was interesting to see that same conversation still happening. Also, Rob, the other, there was no consideration at the time. What about women who were victims of sexual violence? They could be executed for getting rid of a child that came about because of sexual violence. Isn't that crazy? Yes.
00:10:57
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:10:57
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy?
00:10:58
Speaker 2: And I'm assuming at that point abortions weren't allowed. So basically if you were raped or sexually violated against your will and a child was produced.
00:11:10
Speaker 1: What are your options?
00:11:11
Speaker 2: You have none. or you didn't have any at that point.
00:11:13
Speaker 1: Death was literally on the table for these women back then. So now, here we go, this act of 1922, where we don't know for sure what newly born means, comes along Mary O'Donohue in 1927, her case in which she was convicted of murdering her 35-day-old child. So here we go, this sparked a debate. Is that newly born or not? And because of that case, it started some momentum, and they finally got to the Infanticide Act of 1938. which then designates manslaughter for mothers who kill their kids, Robes, who are under a year old. That is still on the books. Robes, it's a year for them.
00:11:53
Speaker 2: Which means Lindsay Clancy would have fallen within that timeline that was established in the UK in 1938, almost 100 years ago.
00:12:02
Speaker 1: It's crazy, isn't it?
00:12:03
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:12:04
Speaker 1: So now, go to the Infanticide Act. Robes, these are chilling words of this thing that is on the books, but this is the actual text of this act that's been on the books for a hundred years, just about over in the UK.
00:12:22
Speaker 2: Where a woman by any willful act or omission causes the death of her child, being a child under the age of 12 months, but at the time of the act, The balance of her mind was disturbed by reason of her not having fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to the child or by reason of the effect of lactation consequent upon the birth of the child.
00:12:49
Speaker 1: Then she shall be guilty of felony. infanticide and may for such offense be dealt with and punished as if she had been guilty of the offense of manslaughter of the child. Robes, the idea that her mind was disturbed by reason of her not having fully recovered from childbirth.
00:13:06
Speaker 2: Yes. What? I mean, that's basically postpartum. Yes. Postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, postpartum psychosis, basically any sort of mental disorder that, that, basically evolves after the birth of a child based on some wacky hormonal responses that many women have experienced in varying degrees. But yes, there are extreme cases, and this is acknowledging this. This is acknowledging this almost 100 years ago, and yet we have been watching in a Massachusetts courtroom that debate rage on among forensic psychiatrists who have spent their lives in studying mental health. Now, I say mental health because many of these folks, the experts, have not spent that much time studying the mental health of postpartum women. And that's the crazy part about this all.
00:14:05
Speaker 1: Robes, you just said, used the word, you said these laws, 100 years old, acknowledge. But stay here, folks. The problem is that they acknowledge, but don't fully explain what happens to women. Stay here.
00:14:30
Speaker 2: Welcome back, everyone, to Amy and TJ. As we await, at the time of this recording, the fate of Lindsay Clancy, it remains in the hands of a jury of 12. They have spent hours and hours deliberating. We're recording this on day three of deliberations, but it is fascinating to go back nearly 100 years and recognize this debate was going on In the UK, which led to changes in laws that we still don't have here in this country, protecting women for a month, I'm sorry, a full year after giving birth from actually facing murder charges if they end up killing their kids. And they've established this law, but there really is still no explanation as to why this may happen to women. They recognize that it can happen to women, but the why is still up in the air.
00:15:26
Speaker 1: Is the why offensive to you? Because, Beck, the way researchers have talked about this, they are essentially saying women go mad. They temporarily lose it. Like, mad is a word that they use. They acknowledge that something happens physiologically to a woman that has to do with her being a woman and her having a baby. We can't explain it all, but we know it's there, and we're going to put a law in the books. Robes, we clearly know so much more about postpartum psychosis and depression now than we did then, scientifically speaking.
00:15:55
Speaker 2: I guess, but it didn't feel like we did when I watched that trial today or the past few weeks. Every day when I was watching different psychiatrists get up, I wasn't convinced that we know more now than we did then. It seems like we don't know anything now. My only experience is that I fully recognize as a pregnant woman that while I was pregnant, I had emotions that made me feel like I was going crazy, quick to anger. There's this massive mama bear defense mechanism that just raged. Someone looks at me the wrong way. I would be unnecessarily angry. And I kind of would say, well, this is biology. I'm protecting the child within me. Any perceived threat, whether it was real or not, I overreacted to. So if that can happen while we're pregnant, after we give birth to these babies, and for every mother, it's different. And I would say for every pregnancy, it's different. I had two, so I had two different experiences. So I just feel like any woman who's gone through this would recognize, yeah, your hormones and absolutely change and fluctuate and go up and down and all around. And yeah, you feel like you're going crazy sometimes.
00:17:06
Speaker 1: Okay, but that's not, here we are.
00:17:09
Speaker 2: I never felt homicidal.
00:17:10
Speaker 1: We're having this debate, but can we tell a jury, hey, you got to give her a break because, you know, she was pregnant and she's going a little crazy. It's got to be more than that. But I'm saying for the UK, a hundred years ago, we don't need more than that. We have evidence that something is happening, even though we don't have a full explanation of why but this is happening and we ain't ignoring it robes i find that to be fascinating but how where's the balance baby at what point do you say she's criminally responsible or not we don't know how to deal with women in postpartum depression and psychosis we just don't and it's all over the place in the world here's the thing robes uh i i pulled this out from one of the reports um pathologize why pathologize women's acts of violence That was an interesting argument. I thought that was a hell of a way to put it. That is a criticism. Why are we putting it on a woman's pathology? Why are we putting it some way into physiology? Why are we putting into some way, some dynamic that's unique to her, to where we give her a pass for an act of violence?
00:18:18
Speaker 2: So who wrote that, a man or a woman? I'm curious.
00:18:21
Speaker 1: I can't remember.
00:18:22
Speaker 2: But I'm interested because to me, look, and again- It's so fascinating that every woman has a different reaction to the Lindsay Clancy case and even this idea that women should be treated differently if they kill their children within a certain period of time after giving birth. I don't know. My experience is that I leave so much space for that to actually being out of her control. Just some of the strong hormonal feelings I felt that were feelings I hadn't been used to or I haven't experienced since, I give space for the fact that, yes, there is a range of intensity based on your brain chemistry and your experiences. And why shouldn't we? Why wouldn't we? give women at least consideration when we know that pregnancy hormones are real.
00:19:14
Speaker 1: I think language matters. You just said consideration. Some say a pass, and it sounds different.
00:19:20
Speaker 2: I agree. I don't think it's a pass. I think it's being willing to look for evidence that suggests that this woman isn't choosing this, that there are actual identifiable hormonal changes and shifts that can actually create a situation in which a woman would do something she would never have done if she hadn't been under the influence of these raging hormones. All right.
00:19:51
Speaker 1: That's out of her control.
00:19:51
Speaker 2: Right?
00:19:53
Speaker 1: The raging hormones are out of her control. Yes. But folks have gone to the arguments. Yes, people have made terrible acts and killed people when they're under the influence of this, this, or this. Under this drug or that drug. They've chosen those drugs. I'm saying that completely. But... You're out of control. You're out of control. What's an excuse for being out of control? I don't know. I actually do not know that. And that's the debate. And I don't think it should be lumped in with people under the influence of alcohol. This is a totally different thing. What I'm just saying, some of the arguments and things people keep pushing back on. The last thing I'll leave you with, Robes, I was blown away to see that the Infanticide Act we're talking about, 1922, 1938, the original one first came about, Robes. It failed the first proposal. said it should be up to eight years that the child, since childbirth, that a woman should be considered robes still in that postnatal or postpartum, like, dangerous situation until the kid is eight. And so they originally, in that law, instead of newly born or up to one year, up to eight years, they were suggesting that a woman should be still given consideration for robes. childbirth and she hasn't recovered from it yet.
00:21:14
Speaker 2: Wow. I don't, I don't know. I'd have to see the science behind that before I got my head around that. I can't imagine that being the case. Look, I understand you add the hormones to sleep, sleeplessness. which is what a lot of folks have pointed to because the insomnia that Lindsay Clancy talked about, two straight days of not sleeping in addition to postpartum hormonal issues. Now you've got a recipe for disaster where you've got insomnia, which absolutely leads to psychosis on top of any sort of postpartum depression, anxiety, or psychosis that could be at play as well. So this is complicated. And I just think that This has to be, this isn't a one size fits all. This isn't a black or white situation. I do think we have to treat each case differently and separately, but this should absolutely be considered. And like, I do think consideration versus a pass. I don't think we're looking to excuse women who murder their kids. I think we're trying to understand them and actually perhaps Not rush to say what an evil, horrible monster, but maybe, maybe, maybe, just maybe we can understand what women go through mentally, physically, physiologically after giving birth that could help us all make better moms, keep our children safe. But just to point the finger and say, you're the outlier, you're the anomaly. I don't think that's a safe way to go forward. That's not a way to prevent this from happening again.
00:22:42
Speaker 1: We will see what will happen, what this jury will do. We are on verdict watch for the rest of who knows how long today. But the jury is officially in and deliberating this morning. But something else we want to throw into the debate, a debate that clearly now has been going on for hundreds of years. And with that, we appreciate you talking to us or listening to us, I should say. I'm TJ. That's Robes. We'll talk soon.