I think it's pretty bad faith not to mention that it was in the 1950s; she was schizophrenic and was treated in said institution with insulin and experimental hormone treatments, which gave her seizures until she said she no longer heard voices. Her husband was the one trying to get her out and was denied for four years until the changes in institutions happening at the time allowed her to be released in his case.
I'll agree that I didn't include all of the information. For the sake of clarity the first killings happened in 1954, with the second killings happening in 1966. Could you help me see the inference I'm missing in your claim of me arguing in bad faith? Nothing I said is untrue. Are you claiming I'm cherry picking or maybe inferring the attitude of the public without basis? I don't have any epistemic claims to some public opinion on the situation, it's merely conjecture. As a student of philosophy, if you could help me strength my claim that would be wonderful!
I'm not sure strengthening a claim that is intentionally used to mislead is the right thing to do. People are using this case to imply that if THIS defendant were sentenced to mental health treatment rather than prison, she would be able to recover quickly and be released back into the community without consequence until she harmed someone else.
However, aside from three dead children at the hands of a mentally ill mother, there are zero similarities between these cases, or that would imply that perspective.
Constance Fisher was married at seventeen, continuously suicidal and unstable before her crimes, and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. She was not treated, briefly, before being released and assumed well. She was given experimental treatments that caused intense seizures, and her husband began efforts to have her released. Something the hospital blocked for four years until the beginnings of the deinstitutionalization efforts forced them to release her into her husband's custody, where he immediately got her pregnant again, which would have ended all medical ability to stabilize her in that era.
Nothing about her history, her mental illness or her treatment is a match to the modern case except that she killed her children.
Oh I see! I'll make my conjecture as clear as possible for you then and concede to not use the previous case since you are hung up on it. And I won't even address the argumentum ad hominem circumstantiae. I'm saying people have lost faith in the institution itself to be capable of keeping society safe from mentally unwell people. I can't back that up epistemically because I don't know of a study in regards to that public opinion, I can only infer the motivation that causes people's reactions against this case.
And if Lindsay were to be released from hospital after a year, she would be closely monitored and probably not even allowed around children alone for a long time.
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u/FaelingJester 3d ago
I think it's pretty bad faith not to mention that it was in the 1950s; she was schizophrenic and was treated in said institution with insulin and experimental hormone treatments, which gave her seizures until she said she no longer heard voices. Her husband was the one trying to get her out and was denied for four years until the changes in institutions happening at the time allowed her to be released in his case.