posted on September 7, 2001 03:10:31 PM new
This is bound to win all sorts of sympathy for the feminist cause. Holding a candlelight vigil for a woman who murdered 5 kids is a nice touch too.
Oh, and look, the ACLU also supports Murder Mom. Guess killing your kids is what? An expression of free speech that needs to be protected?
-------------------------------
NOW Helps Mom Charged in Drownings
By PAM EASTON
.c The Associated Press
HOUSTON (AP) - The National Organization for Women and other groups said Monday they are helping to raise money to defend Andrea Yates - the mother accused of drowning her five children in the bathtub - in part to help other women suffering from postpartum depression.
``It gives us a platform for something that obviously needs education,'' said Deborah Bell, president of Texas NOW. ``One of our feminist beliefs is to be there for other women. Some good may come out of this tragedy.''
The groups also oppose the death penalty for Yates, saying her depression should be taken into account in any punishment.
Yates, 37, called police on June 20 and admitted drowning her children in the tub. Her husband, Russell Yates, told police his wife was depressed and had been treated for postpartum depression. She is under suicide watch in a jail psychiatric unit.
NOW was joined on Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union, other women's and health groups and several anti-death penalty organizations.
``Addressing violence with more violence creates more suffering, grief and victims,'' said Gary Norman of the Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation. ``Let us end this suffering and treat Mrs. Yates' illness and not allow ourselves to continue the perpetuation of pain.''
Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal has said he will seek the death penalty.
NOW and the other groups in the Andrea Pia Yates Support Coalition plan a candlelight vigil on Sept. 11, a day before a hearing is scheduled to determine if Yates is fit to stand trial.
The defense fund was previously established by Yates' lawyers, but they cannot publicize it because of a court-imposed gag order.
Any money raised on Yates' behalf but not needed for her defense will go to groups working to educate and help others suffering from postpartum depression, coalition members said.
-------------------------
posted on September 7, 2001 03:48:51 PM new
Once, I was in the frame of mind that she deserved to die for what she did. Part of me still thinks so, but I buried it, or tried to anyway. Since that topic came up awhile ago, and reading the responses from posters who explained what this kind of depression can do to someone, Im more in the mind of this gal really needs some help, and killing her wont make those babies come back. She is in her own hell right now. I cant imagine what tortures she is going through, remembering the screams and pleadings of her own children to not kill them "mommy, please dont kill me". If that isnt death while living and breathing, I dont know what is. Once, I felt anger and wanted her dead herself. Now I feel pity for her, because it must be awful, what is going on in her own head.
Now, about the father. HIM, I have the anger for. Knowing she was as depressed as she was, and they kept having babies. The disgust I felt for her has changed. What I feel for him is the same as what I felt when it happened.
posted on September 7, 2001 04:11:18 PM new
I do not beleive that Yates was in her right mind when she killed her children. I have a niece who suffered from mild PPD, and the feelings that she expressed were horrible. I can only imagine what was going on in Yates mind. In addition, although I have NO facts to back up my feelings, I beleive that her husband played a much larger role in her depression that has been revealed. For whatever reason, perhaps she felt this was the only way out. Of course a rational mind WOULD find other options, but a sick mind may see no other path.
As for the death penalty vs life in prison, I would think that any mother who has to live with the facts of killing her own would rather die than live day after day after day after day with that memory.
Treating mental disorders is a crap shoot. Find the "right" doctor (it may take many many before you "click" with the right one!) OR go with the "diagnosis of the month" which is accompanied by the perscription of the month. Trying to find (effective) help is difficult with a strong mental state, I can only imagine how that difficulty becomes compounded when your mentally incapacitated.
posted on September 7, 2001 04:18:51 PM new
I don't think Andrea Yates was in her right mind when she killed her children. Then again I don't think any mother that deliberately kills their children are in their right mind.
posted on September 7, 2001 04:37:16 PM new
I agree that she wasn't in her right mind. And that the husband, mother, mother-in-law, and doctor have a large measure of responsibility for this tragedy. They all knew for years that this woman had a severe form of PPD, yet the husband kept pushing for more kids, and the woman was left unattended with those kids.
posted on September 7, 2001 05:58:43 PM new
Actually the point wasn't to rehash whether Andrea Yates is guilty of murder or not (she is), but the dubious wisdom of these big name organizations standing behind her, supporting her, holding goddam candlelight vigils for her.
It seems like everyone has forgotten the five dead kids.
posted on September 7, 2001 06:36:20 PM new
It's all well and good to have sympathy for this woman, but facts are facts. She killed 5 kids. Charles Manson is a sick man, Jeffery Dahmer was a sick man. But why would any organization that wants to do good things spend money trying to defend her in court. The money could be better spent in any number of ways.
posted on September 7, 2001 06:36:23 PM new
Maybe the key to understanding this kind of behaviour lies within this woman. If she can be kept alive and studied with different medications and treatments, maybe the findings will help lead to more knowledge of how to treat this type of depression. One thing about deep depression, is that the person might be good at hiding the fact. Maybe they seem blah alot, but not enough to signal to others that they are ready to kill. It seems easier to put it all together for everyone after the fact but maybe not so obvious before.
Depression has to be the most misunderstood disease going IMO.
posted on September 7, 2001 06:45:50 PM new
mmmm...disection...yeah, that's it. Keep her alive as long as possible while dissecting her. Punishment and a possible cure.
posted on September 7, 2001 07:53:21 PM new
I do not believe that woman was in her right mind. And if she has to serve time, her "keep em barefoot and pregnant" husband should have to serve with her.
No one ever said if he's Mormon or Catholic but I'm guessing one or the other. Those are the big-family religions right now. When I heard she was pregnant--AGAIN--after his wife's having suffered depression earlier--my sympathies went to her. It was probably pretty easy for him, working, coming home at night, enjoying what a studly dude he was. He probably didn't have a clue how hard life was for her.
posted on September 7, 2001 11:17:10 PM new
Now, about the father. HIM, I have the anger for. Knowing she was as depressed as she was, and they kept having babies.
exactly Hep' - and her whole narrow minded community who just view her as breeding stock and cheap labor to be stressed to the limit because that is their view of the divine mandate. NOT so divine. Pietro porkus.
posted on September 8, 2001 09:24:44 AM new
I know that I read an article just a couple of days ago saying that NOW had withdrawn their support. They had said they would raise funds for her defense and then changed their minds because of the bad publicity.
The Aug.30th Washington Post had a report on her condition two years prior to the murders. Part of it:
When asked in the hospital what led to the suicide attempt and the knife incident, Yates replied: "I had a fear I would hurt somebody ... I thought it better to end my own life and prevent it ... There was a voice, then an image of the knife ... I had a vision in my mind, get a knife, get a knife."
I've read several different articles where different professionals and family remembers mentioned her having said for at least two years now that she feared hurting someone and that she couldn't control the voices in her head... Having seen a lot of schizophrenic patients I have no problem at all believing that she was not in control when she killed her kids.
I'll see if I can find the recent article about NOW withdrawing their support.
Not paranoid anywhere else but here!
[ edited by mybiddness on Sep 8, 2001 09:25 AM ]
Two months before she drowned her children, Yates had filled the bathtub with water, refused to tell her husband why and was admitted to a mental hospital. Two weeks before the drownings, Yates' psychiatrist reportedly took her off the drug Haldol, which had alleviated her depression before.
According to psychologists' notes included in the court filings, Russel Yates had been pressuring his wife to come home from the hospital and get off her medication so that they could have more children.
One therapist who treated Yates noted that "patient and husband plan to have as many babies as nature will allow. This will surely guarantee further psychosis and depression."
Chilling... IMO, her husband is as responsible or moreso than she is. Afterall, he was mentally well and refused to seriously address her obvious mental illness.
Not paranoid anywhere else but here!
[ edited by mybiddness on Sep 8, 2001 09:46 AM ]
posted on September 8, 2001 10:04:16 AM new
I do not wish to lay "blame" on anyone in this tragic event, but I want to address the auctual issue.
NOW will support virtually ANYTHING that has to do with ending the lives of children, unborn or not. Their stance on issues like this has always been very clear-CHILDREN TIE ALL WOMEN DOWN!. Their beginings were meant to be to advance womens' causes, but not in the way Ireland et al go about it.
My questions for NOW is this:
You stand behind womans' rights, yet where were you for Monica Lewinski? Or, for that matter, any other woman who has carpeted a "liberal man" (Conduit also comes to mind) for abusing their station and standing over them? More often then not (Rev. Jackson, Sharpton also come to mind), they feel it is "better for the cause" to support the men instead of the women. MAyhap they should re-name themselves NOWLM (National Org. for Women and Liberal Men).
Thats my opinion, we welcome yours!
Rick
In the begining, God created the heavens and the earth.
posted on September 8, 2001 10:32:14 AM new
Those children where innocent victims they didn't have to die. The mother could have said NO more and walked out. Lord GOD knows many mothers have in the past. The mother and father should both be held accountable for their actions.
posted on September 8, 2001 10:56:38 AM new
Here is a VERY interesting link to a site about womans history in the US. I have not had the time to go over it extensively, but it seems really informitive. It's point and click to other sites, this link is to the massive start page.
posted on September 8, 2001 11:36:02 AM new
I hope no one here thinks that if you are on the side of this woman being helped, you are against any kind of punishment for her. I think the opposite is true. I think whether she is totally legally insane or not, shouldn't prevent her from spending the rest of her life in jail. Maybe if she's away from the "enablers" and gets the help she needs, she might be able to help other women years down the road. If/when she becomes "sane", the guilt she will have to live with will be punishment too, not to mention when God gets a hold of her .....maybe she'll be able to see her kids in heaven, but it'll be through a big iron fence.......for eternity.
posted on September 8, 2001 12:01:47 PM new
It is very easy for people such as ourselves, who are (hopefully) in our right minds, to say that this woman could just have said "enough" and walked away. Mentally ill people don't follow the same logic as the rest of us. I speak from experience. My sister had a nervous breakdown while in high school (actually, while at school)...I can tell you that her thought processes were *not* logical after her breakdown. She was in residential care for several years, and under psychiatric after that. It was after a session with her psychiatrist, in which she said all was going well for her, that she went to the top floor of the office building and jumped off the roof to her death.
Yates' case is entirely different from the one where the mother deliberately drowned her kids in the backseat of her car simply because they were in the way of her love life. Now, *that* was an evil, conscienceless woman. Andrea Yates, on the other hand, was/is mentally ill with a diagnosed illness. Should she just be set free? NO, of course not--she should be placed in a psychiatric hospital and treated. Now, her husband...any criminal charges should be placed against him.
I, personally, have absolutely no patience for folks who commit crimes & then try to wiggle out of the consequences by claiming a bad childhood or try to invoke an temporary insanity defense. But in cases like this, where mental illness was indeed an ongoing factor, I think treatment rather than punishment should be a prime focus.
posted on September 8, 2001 12:23:36 PM new
One woman opposing any allowance for her mental state said -
"I don't think we should make excuses for murder," Bishop Imagene Stewart of the African American Women's Clergy Association said during Thursday's demonstration.
"If we let her get away with this, other women — who are mad at their husbands - will do it too, and just plead insanity."
Does she really think there are just uncounted numbers of women waiting for a loophole to kill their children as a way to get back at their husbands? I can not imaigibne there are any great number of women who would do this if there were no punishment at all.
In the Arab countries the father literally has the power of life and death over his children. He can decide to do away with them without the power of the state but very few ever take that action. When they do it is usually because the older children have done something to humiliate the family like go into prostitution. It is normal to wish to preserve your offspring.
posted on September 8, 2001 12:27:44 PM new
Where was all this understanding and sympathy after Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested? Or John Wayne Gacy? No one will ever convince me they were in their "right" minds. How could they be, given what they did. Yet they were tried and convicted.
What about Nikolai Soltys, arrested just last week after murdering his family, his spree ending with the brutal slaying of his 3 year old son? Where's the outpouring of concern for him? Maybe we should all lament "poor thing" because he killed his loved ones too, eh? Bah.
I think a lot of you are automatically affording this woman too much benefit of the doubt simply because she's female.
Anyway, you needn't worry she'll be put to death. The world is too full of suckers for that to ever happen.
posted on September 8, 2001 12:31:09 PM new
btw, mybiddness, thanks for that link. It confirmed my own feeling that NOW had made a very bad move in backing Yates.
posted on September 8, 2001 12:37:36 PM new
gravid,
I agree, that was a pretty dumb thing for Bishop Imagenbe to say.
My favorite quote was one that certainly wasn't meant to be humorous but cracked me up anyway:
One therapist who treated Yates noted that "patient and husband plan to have as many babies as nature will allow. This will surely guarantee further psychosis and depression."
I read it and I thought, You need a degree to figure this out? Probably anybody with two or more kids could have told you that. LOL.
posted on September 8, 2001 12:55:14 PM newWhere was all this understanding and sympathy after Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested? Or John Wayne Gacy? No one will ever convince me they were in their "right" minds.
posted on September 8, 2001 12:57:01 PM newBut in cases like this, where mental illness was indeed an ongoing factor, I think treatment rather than punishment should be a prime focus.
Okay...say that she is treated for her mental illness, and the treatment is completely successful. Then, what should happen to this now "sane" woman? Parole? Continued incarceration?
I don't agree with the insanity defense, but if people are found not responsible for their actions by reason of insanity then it seems to me they should be released free and clear when they are judged "cured."
