What happens when empathy starts protecting the person who caused the harm?

Marcie and Scott confront two stories where sympathy for the adult threatens to overshadow the child at the center.

While following the Lindsay Clancy case, Marcie realized something unsettling: she knew Clancy’s name. She could not name her three children. That absence matters.

The conversation explores toxic empathy, legal responsibility, and the idea of the “second victim.” At what point does understanding someone’s suffering begin to obscure accountability?

Then there is Baby Gabriel. Born through surrogacy with a serious heart condition, Gabriel survived after his surrogate resisted the biological parents’ reported request to end the pregnancy. He has since been returned to their custody by court order, raising difficult questions about surrogacy, disability, parental rights, and what happens when the child adults planned for is not the child they receive.

In both stories, attention gravitates toward the adults, their pain, their intentions, their rights, while the children live with the consequences.

How far can empathy bend before it starts excusing the inexcusable?

Watch the full conversation on Dear Jane.

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0:19 — 25 Years Since 9/11, 1 Since Charlie Kirk

2:12 — The Lindsay Clancy Case

3:02 — Why Are Women Rallying Around Her?

3:33 — Toxic Empathy

4:01 — Justice Wears a Blindfold

6:12 — Who Has to Say This Is Wrong?

6:58 — The Law Was Violated. Then What?

7:58 — “This Sets Us Back as Women”

8:56 — “This Could Be Me”

9:40 — The Second Victim Narrative

10:24 — What Precedent Does This Set?

11:11 — The Copycat Case

12:06 — When Empathy Lands on the Wrong Person

12:40 — Baby Gabriel

13:44 — Better for This Child to Be Dead?

14:35 — Nobody Is Talking About the Baby

15:09 — What the Survival Numbers Show

16:23 — Post-Birth Abortion

17:17 — When the Designer Baby Doesn’t Match

18:03 — Why So Few People Hear About This

18:45 — How Far Does the Slippery Slope Go?

20:08 — Voting With Your Eyes Open

22:35 — When Pro-Life Friends Struggle With This

23:00 — You Might Be the Only Pushback

23:42 — Carpet Cleaning and Riding Mowers