Nancy Mace, a Republican congresswoman from the United States, made a statement that landed like a stone in an already heated conversation. According to her, all serial killers throughout history have had some kind of mental illness, one way or another. And she immediately drew the line: that doesn’t mean Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer weren’t guilty. By the same logic, she argued, Lindsay Clancy should be judged the same way.
The comparison is deliberately harsh. Bundy and Dahmer are synonymous with serial crimes and extreme violence; Clancy is a woman who has been linked to a family case in which mental health became the focus of the discussion. By placing them under the same argument, Mace suggests that a diagnosis can explain a mind, but does not necessarily erase responsibility for one’s actions.
For some, it is a necessary warning: if any disorder could serve as an excuse, guilt would cease to exist. For others, it is an unfair leap that conflates very different situations. Where does illness end and responsibility begin?
