Gloria Steinem is gone. Lindsay Clancy is still here.

Everything that lives will eventually die. The problem is that in the spring of our youth, the end of our lives feels far away. Because of that, we become cocky and self-assured, casting aside belief in the consequences of the kind of regret that puts things in perspective and, at the end of our lives, reminds us of what was really important.Two women are in the news right now. Gloria Steinem, a writer and journalist who just died at 92, and Lindsay Clancy, on trial in Massachusetts for the murder of her three children.It will be interesting to see whether what began in a courtroom that at times resembled a women’s rally will elevate a mother with postpartum depression into a feminist icon.Steinem was a feminist in the 1960s and ’70s, when it wasn’t popular to be one. She went on to spend her life redefining peace, justice, and racial fairness and fighting for women’s liberation, which came to primarily mean a woman’s right to choose to dispose of her offspring.In the eyes of many, Steinem was adored as an activist, even though her idea of equality was rooted in her belief that men, marriage, and children were oppressive because their presence in a woman’s life could deter her from achieving loftier goals.At an abortion awareness rally in 1969, Steinem listened to other women’s abortion stories. At the time, unless a woman’s mental or physical health was in danger, abortion was illegal in the U.K. This is somewhat how, at the moment, the seriousness of child murder is in danger of being downplayed if mental illness is identified as a motive.Steinem venerated the doctor who, like Henry VIII, approved of Anne Boleyn climbing the scaffold to be beheaded by the man assigned to wield the sword. The doctor referred Steinem for the execution of her unborn child in the womb by a practitioner willing to perform the procedure.In language that is now regarded as heroic and liberating, before doing the deed or referring her to a female doctor who did the deed — either way — the willing accomplice made Steinem promise two things: “First, you will not tell anyone my name. Second, you will do what you want to do with your life.”Nearly 60 years after her child had been killed, Steinem dedicated her memoir, “My Life on the Road,” to her hero, Dr. John Sharpe.Around that time, Steinem was widely viewed as a crusader for abortion rights, calling it “reproductive freedom,” a watered-down slogan she thought would make the subject more palatable in political discussion and a phrase that continues to be used in abortion debates to this day.But now, Steinem is dead, and her legacy will be credited with having spent the lion’s share of her earthly existence downplaying the value of life while exalting a woman’s right to dispose of her children.RELATED: Did Lindsay Clancy lose her mind — or her free will? David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe/Getty ImagesGloria Steinem, in life and now in death, will be idolized as an icon for women who embraced the idea that liberation is the right for a woman to snuff out life in the womb.Her glowing death announcement states that she “passed away peacefully at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her.” It is stunning that someone gets to pass away peacefully after spending a lifetime advocating the slaughter of the unborn.The sad truth is that the “many who loved her” circling her bed did not include the son or daughter who would have been entering the seventh decade at the time of their mother’s death. What that touching announcement didn’t mention was whether she finally felt the regret she admitted she couldn’t muster for 69 years over the decision to sacrifice her child on the altar of ambition.Despite all the books, speaking engagements, and accolades laid at Steinem’s feet, as the totality of her life flashed before her eyes, the son or daughter over whom success took precedence, whether she was capable or willing to admit it, may have been the last thing to cross her mind before passing into eternity.Surely her progressive contribution to advancing a woman’s right to decide whether life inside her womb survives is Gloria’s legacy.Now, nearly seven decades after Steinem’s backroom abortion, another woman with the potential to be a progressive pioneer in the fight for a mother’s rights over the lives of her children has been sitting in a wheelchair in a courtroom in Plymouth, Massachusetts. At the time Steinem terminated her child’s life, it was illegal unless a woman was physically or mentally ill. Today, mental illness is exploited as a defense in a trial where three children were executed by their mother.Although it might not look like it, the female support surrounding Lindsay Clancy is similar to the support Steinem received in 1969, when women rallied because they felt no one understood their plight. At this juncture in the Clancy trial, although Clancy’s children, unlike Gloria’s, were outside the womb, the willingness to call her innocent hinges solely on her mental state: guilty if she had her wherewithal, exonerated if mental illness drove her to murder her babies.In Clancy’s case, the thoughts and feelings of her children concern not whether they had regrets, but rather what kind of terror a confused preschooler, toddler, and infant experienced as their mother, for whatever reason, decided they no longer had the right to life.How different is what Lindsay Clancy did — for whatever the reason — from Gloria’s youthful decision to benefit herself?RELATED: ‘That far’ always becomes here erhui1979/iStock/Getty ImagesAs these thoughts come full-circle, it’s important to consider the impact Gloria Steinem had on the deaths of more than 65 million unborn children and how she’s being celebrated and mourned, in light of the potential Lindsay Clancy’s defense might have as an excuse to deny the right to life to those of us outside the womb.Steinem’s actions helped reshape the nation’s views on abortion. In the same way, Clancy could change the nation’s views on maternal filicide. And after postpartum psychosis is accepted as an excuse to kill three children, what’s the next step in the progression for those who move through life like a horse with blinders?If the progressive impulse to excuse the killing of children in the womb extends to children outside it, Lindsay Clancy’s case could have consequences far beyond her trial — potentially eroding the right to life even more profoundly than Gloria Steinem’s abortion activism did.Gloria Steinem is gone. Lindsay Clancy is still here. It will be interesting to see whether what began in a courtroom that at times resembled a women’s rally will elevate a mother with postpartum depression into a feminist icon who moves the needle from excusing child murder to finding any other excuse to dispose of human life because societal mores demand it.Steinem’s opportunity to influence the culture is over. Cases like Lindsay Clancy’s may only be beginning.