I'm not saying I don't believe she was and is very, very sick. I'm a mother of two, a survivor of one case of delayed postpartum depression (I sunk into my funk after weaning my daughter at 10 months, and it took months to find my way back to the world) and one nasty, nasty case of baby blues that lasted, thank goodness, only about a week and a half after the birth of my son. I only got a taste of what fresh hell can be found when your hormones shift and fluctuate, but it left me humbled and empathetic toward all women who must deal with that and worse. For Andrea Yates, I do indeed have empathy. But I don't have forgiveness.

Motherhood brought me one other thing as well: a complete and total inability to tolerate anyone, for any reason, hurting a child. Andrea's mental illness may explain her actions, give them a root, an impetus, a cause. But they don't excuse them. Does she need treatment rather than jail? Probably. Does she need our forgiveness? Probably. But do I have to give it to her? No. Absolutely not. We don't always get what we want or need in this world.

Certainly, her babies didn't. They needed mercy. But what they got was a death sentence.

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No, I'm not going to forgive Andrea Yates. What I'm going to do is grieve for her dead babies. Somebody ought to -- and right now, she's not up to the job.

-- Lori Oliwenstein-Kluger

I really appreciated Susan Kushner Resnick's article on Andrea Yates' postpartum psychosis. I am still struggling to find ground after my bout of postpartum depression. My heart went out to Andrea and her supportive husband as the newscasters report the disaster with horrified tones. I can only hope that this story can help demystify postpartum depression and help the mothers who struggle to survive.

-- Candace Schaffer Grimaud

Having been born in 1960 at the tail end of the baby boom generation, I grew up in a suburban neighborhood where the norm was three, four or five kids, usually born a year apart. Most likely, there were women suffering from some sort of unnamed postpartum depression, but they didn't go out and drown their kids in a bathtub.

-- John Murphy

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