POST-PARTUM DEPRESSION LEGAL DEFENSE FUND
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
I almost broke my neck doing a double take the other morning. Relatives of
Andrea Yates, the Houston mother of five was charged with capital murder
after she allegedly drowned all five of her children, appeared on the Today
Show on August 13. As a sympathetic Katie Couric concluded the interview, an
address for the Andrea Yates Legal Defense Fund appeared on the screen.
While I can understand the reason for the interview, and appreciate the need
for more awareness about postpartum depression, I was stunned and outraged
that NBC seemed to be openly soliciting contributions to the Yates defense
fun. Among other things, this openly smacks of favoritism for an
upper-middle class white woman who has been getting sympathetic media ink
since her children were drowned. I don’t notice the Today Show running the
address for the Mumia Abu Jamal defense fund, in support of the African
American man who is accused of killing a Philadelphia police officer!
To be sure, we all need to know more about postpartum depression.
Reportedly, such depression happens in between ten and twenty percent of
pregnancies, and develops within the first few weeks after childbirth. The
depression is sometimes blamed on the drop in the pregnancy-sustaining
hormones, estrogen and progesterone. Some women suffer depression, and a few
are more agitated, suffering postpartum psychosis. There is so little
research and information about postpartum depression and psychosis that
Congressman Bobby Rush (D-Ill) has introduced legislation to seek more
research and services for postpartum depression victims.
Andrea Yates’ case has not been tried, so it is important to be circumspect
about its implications. Yet it is clear that she was a troubled mother, and
that public opinion has attempted to put troubles like hers in context. No
one excuses a mother accused of killing her children, but many want to be
clear that postpartum depression may have been a factor in the killings.
Few have asked about her husband’s role in all of this, and why Russell Yates
didn’t notice his wife’s depression. Indeed, as sympathy has engulfed him,
he is seen more as a victim than a participant in a family tragedy. If
Andrea Yates was depressed, where was her partner, and what did he do to
alleviate her depression? For that matter, what did our society do? Was
there somewhere in Houston where Andrea Yates may have dropped off her
children for an hour or two so she could get much-needed relief?
As I read about Andrea Yates’ depression, I thought of Regina McKnight, and
wondered why Katie Couric and her cronies haven’t focused on her case or
tried to drum up money for her legal defense. McKnight is a crack cocaine
addict, homeless for the past several years, who delivered a stillborn child.
She is the first woman to be convicted of homicide for killing her child
through drug abuse, and she was sentenced to 12 years with no chance of
parole unless she wins and appeal. Unlike Andrea Yates, she was not r
epresented by high-priced lawyers, nor embraced by spin doctors. Yet she is
much like Yates, a troubled mother whose illness caused harm to her child.
How can so many women embrace the cause of postpartum depression, while
ignoring the equally chilling issue of addiction? And why does one woman’s
horrible situation garner sympathy, while another case is basically ignored.
Lawyers will tell you it’s a jurisdiction thing, but from where I sit race
and class play a role in the different perceptions of Andrea Yates and Regina
McKnight. Yates is seen as tragic, McKnight as negligent. Yates has been
treated with sympathy, while McKnight has been treated with derision. Yet
Yates drowned living children. McKnight’s child may have been stillborn as a
result of her drug abuse, but other factors (including her lack of medical
care and her poverty) may have contributed to her child’s death. And,
importantly, Regina McKnight sought treatment for her drug addiction, but no
treatment was available. Often, even when pregnant women are sentenced to
seek drug treatment, they can’t find rehabilitation programs that can serve
them. Yet, in the state of South Carolina, when they give birth to an
addicted child, they risk prosecution and incarceration.
There’s little sympathy for them. I can’t imagine Katie Couric clucking over
Regina McKnight’s relatives, or telling people where they can send
contributions for her legal defense. Indeed, McKnight has no defense fund.
Without the efforts of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women cases like
hers might be completely ignored. It’s easier to judge women who are poor and
black than it is to judge those whose appearance seems to echo the American
dream. Too many women are looking at Andrea Yates through sympathetic eyes,
while wearing blinders to shut out Regina McKnight’s reality. And Katie
Couric traded in journalistic impartiality for an advocate’s role when she
and her producers decided to push the Yates defense fund.