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Analysis: Yates case raises questions of sexual bias By
Will Bettmann If Andrea Yates, the Houston-area homemaker who drowned her five children in the bathtub and was recently sentenced to life in prison, had been a male, would her case have received the incredible amount of media attention that it did? The Yates case raised some large and troubling questions regarding both the media and the legal system in America. Amoung those quesitions are: 1) Are mothers who kill their children treated differently than fathers who do so?; 2) Are the mentally-ill treated fairly in our justice system, and also, how well are postpartum illnesses, or, in fact, any mental illnesses understood? In an article on the National Organization for Women's home page, Julie Ostrowski noted that while Andrea Yates' trial was going on and receiving national coverage, a 30-year-old Los Angeles man, Adair Garcia, killed his five children, aged 2 to 10, by using his charcoal grill to fill the house with carbon monoxide, but that his case received very little media attention. Perhaps Garcia's method of murdering his children was less sensational than Yates', but the fact that Yates was a mother probably played a role in creating the media frenzy surrounding her case. In fact, during the trial, the prosecutor called Yates' crime, "the ultimate betrayal -- the betrayal of a woman to her child." In her article, Ostrowski cited research showing that women are punished more severely than men in cases involving child murders. Nancy Williams, a professor in the journalism and communication department, said she had also seen research showing women who murdered their children were punished more severely than men. "It's a cultural bias, I think," said Williams. "I don't know why it happens -- just that it does." Williams also said she felt Yates' mental illness had been overlooked by the jury that rejected her insanity plea and found her guilty. "The thing that troubles me the most in this case was that Andrea Yates was so obviously ill. If what she did doesn't qualify for insanity, then nothing does," Williams said. A few facts that did not seem to receive much media attention were that Yates had attempted to commit suicide twice, had been hospitalized four times for mental illness, and was taken off Haldol -- an anti-psychotic drug -- by her psychiatrist just two weeks before she killed her children. Yates' defense attorneys argued that she suffered from postpartum depression so severe that she was incapable of rational thought. After the birth of the their fourth child, Yates suffered from severe depression, and her husband, Russell, was strongly advised against having more children, a warning he (and his wife) did not heed. Texas law, as in most other states, says only that a person must know right from wrong to be found guilty, and the jury obviously determined that Yates was able to make that distinction. Dr. Thorana Nelson, director of the marriage and family therapy clinic at USU, said she thought Yates should have been found guilty, but mentally ill, and treated for mental illness rather than sent to jail. She said the case involved a number of factors other than Yates' postpartum depression. "There is a social context: Yates was involved with a church that was very conservative and encouraged home-schooling, and it may have been difficult for her to live that out," Nelson said. "She got the idea that she was not the perfect mom and that she had irreparably harmed her children. I don't think she understood right and wrong in the same way most of us do. In her mind what she did was right." Nelson said Yates' mental illness was exacerbated by other factors, including postpartum hormones, the fact that she'd just gone off anti-psychotic medication and possibly by an unsupportive environment. Nelson also said there was a huge continuum in way women are affected by the process of giving birth. "It can range from fatigue, just underestimating the toll having a baby takes on your body, all the way to psychosis requiring hospitalization and medication," she said. Doctors who have studied the issue estimate that 15 to 20 percent of women suffer from postpartum depression, whose symptoms can include debilitating feelings of guilt, hopelessness, lack of motivation, inability to enjoy things that were once pleasurable, insomnia, anxiety, and irrational thoughts or fears. An estimated one in 1000 women suffer from postpartum psychosis, which is characterized by confusion, disorientation, delusional thoughts, bizarre behavior and paranoia. David Bush, a pschologist who works at USU's Counseling Center, said it was very difficult to determine if Yates really was insane or not. "Is it possible she was so overwhelmed she wasn't competent? I don't know," Bush said. "There's no question that profound emotional distress can cause people to engage in behavior they wouldn't otherwise consider." Bush said one of the common myths people hold of mental illnesses is that schitzophrenics are violent, but that generally was not true. He also said the energy Yates expended to drown each of her children one by one, made him question her postpartum defense. "One of the hallmarks of major depression is low energy, so maybe the postpartum defense is a little questionable," he said. Nelson said she believed young mothers in Cache County who may be suffering from postpartum depression often don't seek help, because of the stigma attached to therapy, or because they feel they should be able to handle it. "We live in a culture where moms are expected to be able to take care of everyone and everything, and when they can't, they feel guilty," she said. Nelson said the first thing she does when she meets with a mom suffering from postpartum depression is to find out what resources the woman has in terms of physical and emotional support. She also tries to help mothers notice what they're doing well, because depression can sometimes cause them to dwell only on the negative. She said anti-depressants may sometimes help, and also that individual and family therapy is important. "We need more education for young couples," she said. "I've seen research that suggests that the first child has a huge impact on couples; that satisfaction with the relationship goes down. The family's whole life gets reorganized." Nelson noted that the state of Utah has the highest incidence of anti-depressant medication in the nation, especially amoung women, which may be related to the large numbers of children in the state, and the pressure on women to stay at home. She said women's problems are often not taken seriously enough. "Sometimes there's an attitude of 'pat her on the back, give her a pill and tell her to take a nap.' There's a message from society (about postpartum depression) that it'll go away; it's not serious; 'get over it.'"
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