The Lindsay Clancy jury has now gone five full days without reaching a verdict, and if this ends with a not-guilty verdict, drastically reduced charges or a hung jury, I think some of the women cheering Lindsay Clancy on need to consider exactly what argument they are making.

And yes, I am a woman.

That matters here, because women have spent generations fighting the ridiculous notion that our biology makes us too emotional, unstable or irrational to handle enormous responsibility.

Now apparently some women want to resurrect that argument themselves.
Clancy admits she strangled her three children, Cora, Dawson and Callan. Her defense argues postpartum psychosis left her unable to appreciate or control what she was doing. Prosecutors argue she was mentally ill but still understood right from wrong.

That is the legal question for the jury. What is NOT required is turning Lindsay Clancy into some kind of postpartum martyr.

Hundreds of supporters have appeared outside the courthouse wearing pink shirts carrying messages like “Believe” and “She Needed Help.”

Okay. Where are the shirts for Cora, Dawson and Callan?

Postpartum psychosis is real, rare and extremely serious. Women suffering from it need immediate medical treatment.

But if the broader cultural argument becomes, “Female reproductive hormones can make a woman incapable of controlling herself, so she cannot really be held responsible for killing three people,” do these women understand what they are saying?

Because congratulations, ladies. You just resurrected an argument men used against us for centuries.

President of the United States? Commander in chief? Nuclear codes?

Sorry, apparently there is always the possibility those pesky female hormones could take over.

Women have fought to be judged as rational, capable adults responsible for our decisions.

We should not surrender that principle now because the defendant is a mother and her crime is almost too horrific to comprehend.

Stop treating three murdered children like background characters in the Lindsay Clancy tragedy.

Cora, Dawson and Callan are not footnotes. They are the victims.