February 28, 2002
From the desk of Jane Galt:Charles Kuffner asks an interesting
Charles Kuffner asks an interesting question about Andrea Yates:
Ask yourself this question: If Yates' erratic and ultimately lethal behavior had been caused by a brain tumor, would you feel differently about her? If the answer is yes, then why is postpartum psychosis and schizophrenia not enough to mitigate your emotions?
I don't have an answer. On the one hand, I think it's pretty clear that she's as nutty as a junebug. On the other, I feel the same way about Jeffrey Dahlmer, and I didn't want him walking around, because then aren't we giving people a sort of an incentive to make their crimes as heinous as possible?
I know I'm all with the Heinlein quotes these days, but this one (I'm paraphrasing -- my books are in storge) seems to fit: "I figured there were two possibilities if he was sick. Either he wouldn't get well, in which case why leave him suffering? Or he would, in which case how could he go on living, knowing what he'd done. In the end, I figured the important thing was that no more little girls would die. That satisfied me. I went to sleep." Which I offer not to justify executing Andrea Yates, or even locking her up -- but how can she live with herself, if she isn't evil? Are we saving her life just to prolong her suffering?
Posted by Jane Galt at February 28, 2002 3:39 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links