When Truth Is Distorted, Death Is Normalized

By Sarah Holliday

“He had the hardest time getting off the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children.”

Those words were spoken by one of the jurors in the infamous Lindsay Clancy trial—a case that, if you haven’t heard it, involves a mother who brutally strangled all three of her sweet little children.

Cora (5), Dawson (3), and Callan (8 months) will never again see the light of day. One of the last visuals they would have had was that of their own mother—the person who is supposed to love, cherish, and protect them no matter what—taking away their lives while they were still utterly young and full of promise.

Whatever your opinion of that trial may be, let us take a step back to dissect a far more concerning trend in our modern society: the normalization not of death, but of murder.

We just passed the one-year anniversary of the assassination of Charlie Kirk—a husband and father. He believed in America, he proudly shared his faith in Christ, and he strongly felt that if we could just talk to each other, we could begin to heal as a nation. He also knew that if we refused to talk, things would only get worse.

It has been a year since a bullet struck his neck in front of a crowd of over 3,000 people—young and old. It has been a year since a grieving widow lost her husband; a year since two young children were last hugged or kissed by their daddy.

But on that day, over a year ago now, many celebrated the murder of their fellow citizen. It didn’t take long for videos and posts to flood the internet of people mocking the assassination, celebrating the murder of a man they simply didn’t like because they did not agree with him. And now, even on this one-year anniversary, many across the country continue to mock and celebrate.

Yet I reckon we shouldn’t be surprised. In an age where millions of babies are aborted each year in the name of “choice,” “rights,” and “bodily autonomy,” are we really shocked that even a mother who has admitted to killing her own children is being celebrated and supported as well? Are we truly blindsided that mobs of people are happy an innocent man was murdered in cold blood?

I, for one, am not shocked by these things. What I am, however, is distraught.

It’s unbelievably tempting to sit here and wonder: what on earth is wrong with the world? How can people be so utterly cruel? Then again, we know this world is broken. And, quite frankly, we should allow ourselves space to grieve—what was, what is, and even what could be if we do not become the change we hope to see.

We should grieve, because the fact that roughly 28% of Gen Z has already been aborted is egregious (according to Planned Parenthood’s own research arm, the Guttmacher Institute). We should grieve, because the fact that countless women believe abortion is their only option—or that many other women choose to romanticize it in the name of “freedom”—is truly tragic. We should grieve because there is a culture of death that, on par with how the enemy operates, only works to steal, kill, and destroy that which is good, true, and beautiful.

Yet while these tactics have proven to be effective in many cases, there’s another strategy that goes alongside them: distortion. If one cannot steal what is good, if one cannot kill what is true, and if one cannot destroy what is beautiful, one must distort. Not always in blatant, massive ways, but often in subtle ways—just enough to stir doubt and plant seeds of division.

Consider the Lindsay Clancy case. Women (literally) came out in droves to support her, wearing pink shirts outside of the Massachusetts courthouse or posting “Same, Lindsay” on TikTok. Why? Because if you can distort the truth just enough, you get something like this: Yes, maybe she killed her kids, but the system failed her. Her husband failed her. The prescriptions failed her. You name it, something failed her, and now it’s not really her fault her kids were murdered and left face down in the basement of her house.

Consider Charlie Kirk. I had someone tell me just the other day that he tried “to insinuate division when he was alive.” Is she inclined to her own opinion on the matter? Perhaps. But continue on with that distorted “logic,” and you get exactly what we’re already seeing: Sure, he may have been brutally murdered in front of thousands, but he had it coming.

Now, consider the babies—specifically the ones whose lives end inside the womb as they are either ripped apart, limb from limb, or deprived of nutrients via chemical abortion until they ultimately lose their ability to hold onto life at all. Most people acknowledge the preciousness and liveliness of babies to some extent in certain circumstances—the baby shower, the gender reveal, the ultrasound, or in most cases in which the baby is, say, “wanted.”

And yet that same recognition turns to the wayside the moment the baby is deemed unwanted or inconvenient. Suddenly, all kinds of truths are distorted. “It’s not a baby,” many abortion activists claim, “it’s a fetus; a clump of cells.” If that child is diagnosed with a birth defect, the simple truth that their life has value is drowned out by these ideas that “they’re better off not being born” or that “they would want to have their misery ended now.” Never mind the fact that, when a baby is killed in the womb, said baby never gets the chance to say what he or she would want.

I suspect you understand what I’m getting at. Truth is truth, and by its very nature, truth does not change. This, in part, is why it’s so crucial to understand what truth is so that we may then better recognize when it is being distorted. And when we see truth being distorted, may we rise to the occasion to proclaim it in its entirety with courage and boldness.

John 8:32 says, “and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Reader, if you know the truth, then you understand how it feels to be set free, don’t you? So, do not keep that to yourself. Allow the truth that sets you free to also unbind the chains of those who are around you.

Share the truth, even when the world hates you for it. Share the truth, even when you are reviled and mocked—or even killed. Share the truth, even if you are the only one doing it. Share the truth, because the truth matters. Share the truth, because when more people believe it, more babies are born. More mothers are protected. More fathers get to be fathers. 

We must not grow weary in doing good. The same courage that names murder for what it is—whether in a Massachusetts courtroom, on a crowded campus, or in a quiet clinic—is the courage that still has power to push back the dark. Hold fast to what is true. Speak it plainly. Live it consistently.

In a culture that celebrates death, twisting language to make it palatable, perhaps the most radical act we have left is simply to refuse the lie—to keep telling the truth until more lives are spared and more hearts are set free.