A woman in the United States has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for feticide – the act causing the death of a foetus.
Purvi Patel was convicted of giving birth prematurely, dumping the foetus in a dumpster and then lying to hospital staff about her actions. She becomes the first woman convicted and sentenced for the crime in the United States.
"The crux of this case lies in the choices you made after you delivered that baby and you realized the outcome was different than you hoped it would be or expected it would be," St. Joseph Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Hurley said, the Chicago Tribune reports.
Patel was arrested in 2013 when she attended the emergency room at St. Joseph Hospital in Mishawaka, Indiana, while bleeding heavily.
Doctors realised Patel had lost a pregnancy and questioned the 33-year-old. Patel told doctors she had had a miscarriage and dumped the foetus in a dumpster behind her family's restaurant. She said she had panicked as she did not know what to do with the foetus.
She was charged with both the neglect of a dependent and feticide, which the defence argued were contradictory charges. She was found guilty on both counts by a court in Indiana.
Judge Elizabeth Hurley sentenced Patel to 30 years for neglect, with the final 10 years suspended. She gave Patel a six-year sentence for feticide, to run concurrently.
Prosecutors alleged she had taken illegal abortion drugs, sourced from China, to terminate the pregnancy. They argued Patel did this as it was more convenient for her than a medical abortion.
An Indiana law, under which Patel was charged, prohibits “knowingly or intentionally terminat[ing] a human pregnancy.”
Ms Hurley told Patel: "You, Miss Patel, are an educated woman of considerable means. If you wished to terminate your pregnancy safely and legally, you could have done so.
"You planned a course of action and took matters into your own hands and chose not to go to a doctor."
When Patel arrived at the hospital a doctor present, Dr. Kelly McGuire, called the police, as he is obligated to report cases of suspected child abuse, The Washington Post reports. The doctor travelled to the scene with police, where he pronounced the foetus dead on arrival. McGurie would later tell a court that by his estimation the foetus was roughly 30 weeks old and could have survived after birth.
Patel told police that back pains had forced to leave work on the day in question, she had then gone to the bathroom where “it all came out”. Patel told police the foetus was among the blood and she attempted to revive the baby with mouth to mouth resuscitation.
Prosecutors would later argue that Patel had intentionally induced an abortion. The case was based on text messages on Patel’s phone, and a toxicologist did not find evidence of the drugs in Patel’s body that would have confirmed the claim. During her interviews with police Patel told officer she did not want her Hindu parents to find out about either the pregnancy or the subsequent incidents. Her lawyers would later argue that her panicked reaction to the birth was borne of her strict Hindu upbringing and her parents who disapproved of sex before marriage.
The case has started a public debate in the US, with pro-choice activists claiming that the law, which was initially intended to protect pregnant women from sellers of illegal abortion drugs, is now being turned against them.
Sara Ainsworth, Director of Legal Advocacy of National Advocates for Pregnant Women said: “Indiana should not join these countries where young pregnant girls are committing suicide at alarming rates; pregnant women are avoiding medical care for fear that any problem in pregnancy will be reported to law enforcement; and mothers are not only going to jail for having abortions, but also for suffering miscarriages and stillbirths.”
The judgment has raised concerns that Patel could be the victim of a political shift in the state, PRI reports. The judge in the case, Elizabeth Hurley, is the first superior court appointee of Mike Pence, the new conservative governor. The judge permitted the showing in court of a video of Patel’s interview by police, while she was in post-operative recovery. The defence argued that Patel’s Miranda rights were ignored and she was recovering from sedation and sever blood loss when police came to question her.
Patel is the first woman convicted under Indiana’s feticide law but she is not the first charged, NBC reports. In 2011, Bei Bei Shuai was charged under the same law, following a suicide attempt which she survived but her foetus did not. She spent one year in prison before the feticide charges were dropped as part of a plea deal.
