The case of Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts mother on trial for strangling her three children to death with exercise resistance bands in the basement of the family’s Duxbury home, has divided the nation. Some say the mother’s case is shining a light on postpartum struggles, while others say public support for her exemplifies misguided compassion.

Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director-turned-pro-life advocate, agrees that mothers need support from their families and community after they have a baby; however, she also believes that Clancy must be held accountable for committing three murders.

“I think that people are using their own experiences with postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis, and they’re linking it to what Clancy did, and they’re saying, ‘Oh, that could have been me,’” Johnson told The Christian Post.

“But that’s actually not true; most women who have postpartum psychosis do not kill their children,” she added. “Most women who are sympathizing with Clancy are not women who would have gone through the act of strangling three of their children.”

Johnson stressed that mothers need support after having a baby, citing this need as the reason she started LoveLine, a 24-hour national support hotline that aims to assist pregnant women and families.

“I believe that we have cracks in our mental health system. I believe absolutely all of those things can be true, but I also believe at the same time that Lindsay Clancy is guilty of murder,” she said.

Clancy, 36, a former labor and delivery nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, is facing murder charges for the Jan. 24, 2023, deaths of her three children: Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and 8-month-old Callan.

The mother pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder, with her defense attorney arguing that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time. Prosecutors argue that Clancy planned the murders and sent her husband to pick up takeout and stop by the pharmacy before murdering their children and attempting suicide.

The question before the jury is whether Clancy should be held criminally responsible for her actions. Jurors have been deliberating Clancy’s fate for three days. On Monday, the jury was dismissed until Tuesday morning.

Clancy’s case has prompted multiple women to speak out about their postpartum struggles. Earlier in the trial, about 300 women, along with a few men, rallied outside the Plymouth courthouse to express support for Clancy.

As a mother to eight children, Johnson is not unsympathetic to women who’ve experienced postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis. After the birth of her first daughter, Johnson said she couldn’t bond with her child and wondered if something was wrong with her.

At the time, Johnson was still working for Planned Parenthood, and she faced pressure to return to work as soon as possible, which only added to her stress.

“I had a husband that was supportive, although not really knowing what to do,” she explained. “I kept a lot of it to myself. I didn’t want to open up to friends and family about it. I think there is a pressure from society for women to maintain a certain semblance of having yourself put together after having a baby.”

Johnson told CP that she struggled for a year. Even during Christmas, Johnson recalled feeling no joy and being unable to stop crying.

Her mother, seeing the state that Johnson was in, encouraged her to seek help once she returned home. After visiting a doctor, Johnson said she was diagnosed with postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis.

“I got on medication, and it was like I had been living in black and white and all of a sudden, all the colors turned back on,” she said.

In response to the Clancy case, Johnson says many people have allowed a sense of “misguided compassion” to fuel their feelings. Another issue that has tainted people’s perception of the case is the draw toward what she describes as “conspiracy rot.”

Throughout the trial, people have shared various theories online about the Clancy murders. One of the more popular theories is that Clancy didn’t murder her three children, and the real culprit is her husband or someone else.

Johnson thinks that the reason people are inventing theories is that they cannot believe a mother would murder her own children, even though Clancy’s defense team hasn’t argued otherwise.

“So, I think a lot of the conspiracy-minded women are looking for an alternative to who actually committed the crime because they’re looking at this scene of three strangled children and saying it could not possibly have been a mother that did this; it had to have been someone else,” Johnson said.

“There is evil in this world that people deny because they cannot believe that something that evil could exist, but it does.”

Article written by Samantha Kamman and originally appeared on The Christian Post.