A tragedy within another one. . .

According to the dictionary, a tragedy is not simply something terrible but a very sad event or situation, especially one involving death or suffering.  Those on every side should agree that when Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children–5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan– and then attempted suicide by jumping out a window– is a tragedy.  The fact that she did not die but lived only to be left paralyzed is perhaps less so.  

We all know about her defense.  She answered the charges against her with the defense of postpartum depression and psychosis. I cannot dismiss such a thing.  If you have been a pastor long, you have undoubtedly ministered to a family in that same boat.  Too many woman have suffered this to one degree or another.  The fact that a great number of women sympathized with her, supported her on social media, and expressed their concern publicly only attests to the fact that postpartum depression is not talked about enough or taken seriously enough.  What remains, however, is that her children suffered because of her diagnosis and her husband and extended family were left with multiplied grief for all that took place.  Of course, in hindsight family and medical personnel might have done things differently.  But her children are still dead while she lives.  Her grief has been compounded by the realization of what she did.  Whether that is enough for her to suffer is not quite the issue in her trial.  In the end, this trial ended with a mistrial–all of the jurors but one wishing to acquit her.  

According to the same dictionary, the word acquit means to decide officially in a law court that someone is not guilty of a particular crime.  It is a curious word.  Everyone admits she is guilty.  The issue is not whether she is guilty but whether or not she is culpable for the crime.  She is clearly at fault but were there circumstances which mitigate against the raw judgment of guilt which should be taken into account. Apparently one juror spoke out in public of the holdout, “He had the hardest time getting over the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children.”  Here is the second tragedy.  Apparently the other eleven jurors could get over that fact that she had actually and viciously murdered her children.  Some lamented that the law required a unanimous verdict.  It is as if the attention has shifted away from Lindsay Clancy and onto the judicial system and this particular jury.  That is the tragedy.  That we can "get over" the brutal death of these children but cannot get over how many outside the courtroom and all but one of the jurors could is a tragedy of great proportions.  I find it hard to see how the feelings for abortion have not contributed to this state of affairs in which the killing of children is a lesser tragedy than holding the one who killed them to account for her actions.  As if that were not enough, the news has it that another mother has killed her two-year-old son and she particularly tied this to the crime and the trial of Lindsay Clancy, saying she was “inspired” by Clancy.  How is it that we have come to the point where the judicial status of the one responsible for the crimes has become a greater tragedy than the deaths of her children which she caused?  Could it be that this is a tacit admission that some lives are wroth more than others?  Who gets to decide?  Which lives should have value and which should not or should have a lesser value?  But is that not exactly what we have done with abortion?

Yes, the whole situation with Lindsay Clancy is a tragedy but hidden within that tragedy is another one.  We are already at the point of picking and choosing which lives matter and which do not.  Of course, this is not the first time this has happened.  The fact that it continues indicates that we have learned nothing from our errors.  And that is perhaps the tragedy that encompasses all the rest.