THE HUTCHINSON REPORT: Is postpartum depression ever an excuse for murder?

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Contributing Columnist

There’s Lindsay Clancy and now Takiyah Babers. They have two things in common. They either murdered their children in the case of Clancy or are alleged to have murdered their child as in the case of Babers. Clancy strangled her three children.

Babers allegedly dumped her four-month-old child in a trash bin. She is being charged with murder and in effect held on a $2 million bond. This in effect is no bond given the anger, passion and seriousness of the charge, not to mention the endless speculation about her motive in allegedly dumping her baby in a trash bin.

The other thing Clancy and Babers have in common is that in both cases postpartum depression gets the blame for their heinous acts.

Clancy nearly got acquitted in her recent celebrated trial for murder. Her prime defense was postpartum depression and attendant mental health challenges. The majority of jurors bought it. That almost certainly will be a defense for Babers if she ever comes to trial for the alleged murder of her child.

There’s good and bad news about postpartum depression and baby harming. The good news is that it’s extremely rare. That is that a mother suffering such extreme anxiety, depression, and mental exhaustion from childbearing and caring rarely harms their child. How rare? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Cases estimates that there are roughly 500 known cases of parents killing their children yearly.

The bad news, though, is that an estimated one in eight mothers suffer from postpartum depression. That’s about 12% all of mothers. 

That’s a lot of women with the condition. And each one, like Clancy and Babers, represents a potential mental ticking time bomb in relation to their children. The equally bad news is that the signs of the condition are often very visible.

Clancy got all sorts of treatment and counseling for her condition. That is critical. Studies show that the condition can last for weeks, sometimes months.

If untreated it can even worsen and pose potential danger for newborn babies.

It’s unknown what, if any treatment, Babers got for her alleged condition. This is one of many unanswered questions that remain clouded in the wake of the heinous act. However, in the aftermath of her alleged killing of Baby Luna, it was widely noted that she had been struggling with the condition.

Clancy got mountains of public attention before, during and after her trial for the sensational horror of murdering her three children. Babers will likely not get anywhere near the same attention. There’s yet another reason for the marked difference between her and Clancy. That is race.

Babers is a young African American. She lived in a low-income housing project in South Los Angles. There is no indication of any kind of financial support she got after the birth of Baby Luna.

Clancy, by contrast, was a white middle-income mother who lived in a middle-income suburban community. There was no surprise that she got instant sympathy from a vast number of women. That sympathy was certainly apparent in the jury’s decision to almost acquit her.

Despite the differences between the status of Babers and Clancy, Babers will still be in the public and legal spotlight. The dumping of a baby in a trash bin can’t’ help but get public attention and revulsion. In fact, the rumor mills were off the chart in the hours after Baber’s arrest with all sorts of theories as to why she did what she did, none of which had any substance.

The one silver lining is that the repulsive act of murdering a baby stirs debate and focuses on what and how intensely postpartum depression should be recognized and treated. California has the Safely Surrendered Baby Law, which provides a new mother with a bailout for an unwanted baby by allowing her to release it to state custody. The problem is that there was little to no public awareness of it before Baber’s alleged act.

The law, though, stands as agonizing recognition that some babies are at risk from some mothers. Sadly, Babers was not one of those mothers who, if she knew about the measure and the way out it gave her, chose to take it. Her baby would be alive and well if she had.

Like Clancy, Babers would not be hideous public testament to the peril some babies face from the one person on the planet they would ever expect to endanger them. That is their mothers.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His latest book is “The Garbaging of America” (Amazon ebook and Middle Passage Press).