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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 14, 2026

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I don't think this is primarily a pro-choice/pro-life story at all. One of the kids she killed was five years old; even an extreme pro-choicer like me (on the record here before saying that I would not really personally detest parents who postnatally aborted a one-month-old) thinks this is unambiguously murder of a human being and should be treated as such. (Also, the usual kind of failure of theory of mind between tribes. No, we really do not believe fetuses are human. Being pro-abortion is really not particularly about women; I had my share of irresponsible unprotected sex back in the days, and felt very reassured by the existence of legal and easily accessed abortion.)

Instead, this is obviously just the usual case of the forces of tribalism having randomly coalesced around some nearly random figure, with the significance of the case for each tribe mostly having become how much significance it has for the other. Whether Clancy is convicted or not would primarily have the effect that it would be a visible public defeat for all the people who staked significant attention and political capital on the opposite outcome. If she is acquitted, it would bias expectations in future conflicts towards "women can get away with anything"; if she is convicted, it would bias expectations towards "all the efforts of women activists can't get one woman acquitted".

If she is acquitted, it would bias expectations in future conflicts towards "women can get away with anything"; if she is convicted, it would bias expectations towards "all the efforts of women activists can't get one woman acquitted".

Which is the exact reason the pro-choice/pro-life debate exists in its current form in the first place. It's really not about killing kids- Palestinian women are more than happy to send them on suicide missions every day. Why would Western women be any different?

The only places that don't have this issue take the posture that both men and women are subordinate to the State- the more subordinate, the more even-handed and pro-social the restrictions (it's still not going to stop the State from killing kids who have disabilities incompatible with life, but that honors men more in the sense that it acknowledges they have to pay for it).

Meanwhile, in the Anglosphere, women are the State.