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INDIANA STANDS BY DISGUSTING DECISION TO JAIL WOMAN FOR TWENTY YEARS OVER MISCARRIAGE
Posted by Patricia Colli on 24 Dec 2015
Purvi Patel has now been incarcerated at the Indiana Women’s Prison for eight months – for having a miscarriage.
Earlier this year, 35-year-old Patel became the first person in the history of the United States to be sent to prison for feticide, which Patel insists was actually a miscarriage and a situation far beyond her control. According to Patel, she had delivered a stillborn fetus after being about 23 weeks pregnant. The premature fetus wasn’t moving, and she tried to resuscitate it but was unsuccessful in her attempts. Patel didn’t want her conservative Hindu parents to discover what had happened, so she disposed of the fetus and sought medical attention because she was bleeding.
Prosecutors in Indiana framed Patel’s incident much differently. They accused her of taking drugs to induce an abortion – despite the fact that there were no drugs found in Patel’s system. A discredited test was also used to claim the fetus was alive at birth. Patel was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison for something she had no control over.
This case received attention all over the globe, as fears rose that Patel’s conviction of feticide and child neglect would make it easier for women to be punished for the uncontrollable variables and outcomes of their pregnancies. Reproductive rights groups rallied for her freedom, but to no avail.
“While no woman should face criminal charges for having an abortion or experiencing a pregnancy loss, the cruel length of this sentence confirms that feticide and other measures promoted by anti-abortion organizations are intended to punish not protect women.”
Patel filed an appeal of her conviction in October, and she’s finally gotten a response from Indiana’s attorney general, who is still standing by the conviction. The appeal Patel recently filed argued that the conviction was a violation of Patel’s constitutional rights, and that the feticide charge shouldn’t have been applied to her case. However, Indiana Attorney General’s office stands firm:
“The state was not required to prove that an attempt to obtain medical care would have saved the baby’s life, only that Defendant placed her baby in appreciable danger by not obtaining medical care for him. The jury reasonably inferred that Defendant was subjectively aware that her baby was born alive…The baby was born at 8:11pm on July 13, one of the longest days of the year, meaning that there was still plentiful light present at that time.”
The state also accused Patel of knowing that she was over 10-12 weeks pregnant and insists she should have known she’d have a live birth. Examining her text messages to a friend, the state claimed Patel had a “disengaged and unemotional attitude at the hospital.”
Photo credit: Amy Gastelum
However, Patel’s attorneys have one more chance to object to the state’s argument, and the Indiana Court of Appeals has not yet ruled on her appeal. Patel’s attorneys will continue to argue that the child neglect and feticide charges contradict each other and that “a conviction for feticide does not require proof that the fetus died in utero.”
Unfortunately in Indiana, there are no legal protections against feticide charges for pregnant women. If the state doesn’t change its mind, Patel will be forced to serve a minimum of 20 years in prison.
