In a wider view, I agree. But I'm not feeling terrible about using the term for someone that offs their own children. In what context is that not some serious and notable mental disorder? Is "sociopath" somehow kinder?
Psychopathy is a specific kind of mental illness and I don't think it's self-evident that anyone who would kill their children is a psychopath rather than afflicted with some other form of mental illness.
I'm open to that. Just not any rationale that it was justified. Or that it excuses the headline wording.
Who's saying it was "justified"?
Whoever decided the headline should say "ended his life" with no mention he murdered his children.
Depending on how much you twist the logic, there IS a semblance of an ideal of "doing them a favor and sparing them the evils of the world". Not defending, but to the truly hopeless it probably provides some weighting for the decision making.
It depends on whether the connotations of "evil" remain attached to the word, vs. "seriously dangerously malfunctioning".