Is Social Media Teaching Us to Empathize With the Wrong Person?

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.--0:19 — 25 Years Since 9/11, 1 Since Charlie Kirk2:12 — The Lindsay Clancy Case3:02 — Why Are Women Rallying Around Her?3:33 — Toxic Empathy4:01 — Justice Wears a Blindfold6:12 — 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 Narrative10:24 — What Precedent Does This Set?11:11 — The Copycat Case12:06 — When Empathy Lands on the Wrong Person12:40 — Baby Gabriel13:44 — Better for This Child to Be Dead?14:35 — Nobody Is Talking About the Baby15:09 — What the Survival Numbers Show16:23 — Post-Birth Abortion17:17 — When the Designer Baby Doesn’t Match18:03 — Why So Few People Hear About This18:45 — How Far Does the Slippery Slope Go?20:08 — Voting With Your Eyes Open22:35 — When Pro-Life Friends Struggle With This23:00 — You Might Be the Only Pushback23:42 — Carpet Cleaning and Riding Mowers