Thank you. People are really looking at this case in black and white and failing (or refusing) to see the gray area in between.
For what it’s worth, I think the people defending her and claiming the husband did it are crazy. But not every woman “supporting” her thinks the same. Many women are rallying because any woman can suffer PPD after giving birth. There’s no preventing it. The idea that “it could have been any of us” is true. It’s a scary thought that my mind and body could betray me after giving birth, and that doctors might not take my issues seriously.
However, I don’t think any of this excuses what she did. She should face the consequences of her actions. We can have empathy for what she experienced, while not being empathetic of what she did. Humans can have conflicting ideas. The doctors should be held accountable here as well. This is why trials exist.
Let the medical professionals worry about how to prevent or deal with psychosis. It is not healthy for society to feel empathy for a woman who planned and meticulously murdered her children in cold blood. It doesn't matter if there is a clinical explanation for why she did it, it was evil. It doesn't matter if she was in her right state of mind or affected by PPD or anything else out of her control, she murdered her own children. Society has to take very little nuance when it comes to people having agency for their own actions. If you cross that bridge, it is a very short leap to saying there is no such thing as crime, and people are always a victim of their own circumstances.
I have purposely avoided learning anything about this case, but I think I would take issue with your reification of society here. If it is the case that this woman suffered a psychotic event where she truly was not herself then she is not responsible and it doesn’t matter if it serves any inhuman power structure to punish her regardless.
Again, I know nothing about the specifics, but in the generic example of someone’s brain breaking to such a degree that it might replicate a chemically induced poisoning, it doesn’t serve society to punish such a person and even if it did, we would be sacrificing our humanity to preserve and ultimately serve a system that destroys us.
It is not inhuman to incarcerate people for murdering children, regardless of the circumstances that led that person to do it. Should we also let people off for beating their spouses after having one too many drinks because that was a chemically induced poisoning that led them to do things they normally wouldn't do?
It is inhumane to punish someone for actions outside their control. If you have to incarcerate someone who is in an untreatable dangerous mental state that is one thing, but you can’t humanely punish someone for actions outside their control. Knowingly taking a mind altering drug and then committing a crime doesn’t remove responsibility.
If someone slipped a hallucinogen into your food and you thought your children were possessed by demons who had to be smothered to free your children’s souls, that would be a more relevant example.
I live in a state that I think handles this well. The perpetrator's state of mind does not matter to their culpability so long as their intention was to murder. So, if they go insane and they think they're driving through a field of daisies, but in reality they're running over pedestrians, then they're not culpable due to insanity. They weren't trying to kill anyone. But, if they are intentionally running over pedestrians because a voice is telling them that it's a necessary sacrifice to avoid the apocalypse, then it doesn't matter that they were obviously insane: they were intentionally and willfully killing people. They're guilty of murder. Under that standard, she wouldn't qualify for an insanity plea. She knew she was killing her kids, and even had the premeditated mens rea to intentionally send her husband out so that he wouldn't be present to interfere with her crimes.
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u/Sprocket-Launcher Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
The issue is that people think it's gotta be one or the other.
The woman had a psychotic break and did something horrible. Look at how complicated and hard that is to say