The Clancy Trial and the Children Our Compassion Forgets

The Clancy case asks a question larger than the one entrusted to the courtroom. Can we still recognize in the smallest human being a good that precedes our choices and makes a claim upon us? Or have we absorbed an ethic in which the adult occupies the entire moral field and the child exists only within the adult’s experience? A civilization is measured by the place it gives those who have no voice. If we wish to rebuild a culture of life, we should begin again with three names: Cora, Dawson, and Callan. Justice and mercy, when genuine, forget no one.