What ever happened to mothering?

I remember when Susan Smith intentionally rolled her car into a lake, drowning her two young sons, ages 3 and 14 months, in 1994. I had two nephews who were about the same age, and I was horrified. How could a mother do this? I was not alone. The entire country reacted in shock, grief, and a visceral sense that the sacred bond between mother and child had been violated.

Here we are, thirty years later. Lindsay Clancy is on trial for strangling her three young children, maintaining, as Susan Smith did, that she was not in her right mind. Yet instead of responding with collective condemnation, women are rallying to her defense. They wear pink to court to express their solidarity. They write letters of support. They comment on social media, “Same, Lindsay.”

I’m not diminishing the reality of postpartum depression and psychosis—although in Lindsay’s case, the prosecution has raised some valid questions about the unlikelihood of someone suffering an isolated psychotic break during which she makes plans to get her husband out of the house, gathers supplies to strangle her children, and proceeds to methodically execute them. 

It’s not just that Lindsay’s followers are sympathetic to her mental illness. Their behavior evinces a growing paradigm shift in the way our culture views motherhood itself—a shift that directly corresponds with the way our culture views abortion. 

After all, is there really such a profound moral distinction between a mother who pays an abortionist to dismember her baby, or a mother who deliberately ingests a drug that she knows will kill her child, and a mother who collects her exercise bands to tie them around the necks of her children? 

Our society places a premium on autonomy, freedom, and self-actualization. These were the ideals that resulted in Roe and that still fuel the billion-dollar abortion machine today. 

But these “ideals” are antithetical to motherhood. Babies are 100% dependent and they relentlessly intrude on their parents’ autonomy. They care nothing for work schedules, agendas, or Zoom meetings. Their needs do not diminish when the family is on vacation or when their mothers are sick. They demand comfort and immediate response. Women throughout history have known this. Our mothers and grandmothers regarded children as the fulfillment of womanhood, not antithetical to it. 

And sacrifice was part of the deal—it was the natural and expected expression of love for one’s family. 

But so many women today see sacrifice as a burden to be avoided in favor of pursuing self-care, self-love, self-determination. It’s why birthrates are plummeting in Western nations. Anything that limits our choices or interferes with our personal fulfillment is seen as a direct threat to our well-being. 

This is abortion culture. Women are told that children should not come between us and our education, economic security, career goals, relationships, or personal happiness. I’m not suggesting that Lindsay’s followers are celebrating that she killed her children. But they are disturbingly empathetic—as if she represents a predictable response to the stress of raising a family. 

Raising children is hard. Postpartum depression is real, and women suffering from it should have help. But this doesn’t require us to accept a culture that teaches women to experience the needs of their children as burdens from which they need relief.

Abortion culture teaches that mothers and children have competing interests. When those interests collide, the balance tips in favor of the mother—even at the expense of the child’s life. When a woman faces an unplanned pregnancy, abortion culture tells her what motherhood will cost her—not what it will provide her. 

For decades, we have normalized the idea that women can buy their autonomy with their children’s lives. Should we really be shocked that this idea has escaped the inner sanctum of the abortion clinic?