Maternal Filicide as Narrative Test

High‑profile cases where mothers kill their children become focal points for competing public narratives: criminal culpability versus mental‑health victimhood versus systemic‑failure arguments. How elites, activists, and media frame these cases reshapes law, clinical practice, and public sympathy more than new evidence often does. — These cases function as litmus tests that can shift policy priorities (screening, sentencing, social supports) and political coalitions around gender and mental‑health issues.