In late August, the National Organization for Women (NOW) and other groups, including the Houston chapter of the ACLU, announced that they would raise money for the Andrea Pia Yates Support Coalition. Yates, the Houston mother charged with killing her five children in June, claims to be afflicted by postpartum depression, and all indications are that she will offer this as her defense. No more than a week later, NOW published a letter from its president Kim Gandy, retracting its support and claiming that they had been terribly misunderstood.

Andrea Yates allegedly drowned her five children on June 20, placing them one by one, from a six-month-old girl to a seven-year-old boy, into a bathtub and submerging them until they stopped breathing. The seven-year-old had to be chased down and dragged back to the bathroom.

This is a tragic story that is unfortunately repeated from time to time. Fathers have taken the lives of their children in fits of rage or depression. They are treated like killers and sentenced appropriately. But according to NOW’s initial statement, the accused killer in this case is a victim of mental illness.

NOW’s original rationale for defending Yates rested on the belief that postpartum depression is an illness that deserves further medical research. Postpartum depression is undoubtedly a women’s issue but it is a huge leap from the position that this problem deserves more study to then providing legal support for a woman accused of killing her five children.

Until September 5, a visitor to NOW’s web site would find the group’s position on the issue only by using the site’s search engine. Buried within the site, NOW stated that it considers postpartum depression a disability that excuses those afflicted from their actions. Its position was entwined with a statement on the Yates case.

Pundits denounced NOW’s support and on September 6 protesters assembled to march on the group’s Washington, D.C. headquarters. But that day NOW’s president retracted support for Yates. NOW’s involvement with the case resulted in nothing more than crass publicity that not only treaded on shaky ethical ground, but also underscored NOW’s desire for attention in an age when it is fading quickly as a beacon for independent women.

By initially supporting Yates, NOW alienated many potential members. But alienating potential members is not new for this organization. The group’s ranks have been thinning over time—a sign that their hard-line, ultra-left positions on issues are unappealing to today’s women. NOW’s public retraction shows that maybe it finally recognizes this cause and effect.

Contrary to Kim Gandy’s statement, the problem is not that women misunderstand NOW but that they see what the group actually represents. Women have every reason to remain suspicious of NOW’s intentions and tactics. The initial support of Andrea Yates made the group even more unappealing to today’s women and girls. It is a tragedy that the deaths of five children were used to draw attention to an organization whose impact is fading daily. Women are right to ignore this organization, which never spoke for all women and now, without any doubt, speaks only for itself.

Joelle Cowan is a public-policy fellow at the California-based Pacific Research Institute’s Center for Entrepreneurship. She can be reached via email at jcowan@pacificresearch.org.