Purvi Patel

Purvi Patel (born c. 1982) is an Indian American sentenced to 20 years in prison in Indiana for feticide and child neglect after her pregnancy ended and the baby/fetus was found in a dumpster.[1] Her case has caused international controversy about the prosecution of pregnant women accused of intentionally or recklessly causing miscarriages or stillbirth.[2][3] She is the first woman in the United States to be charged, convicted, and sentenced on a feticide charge.[4] This has also been compared to the prosecution of Bei Bei Shuai under similar circumstances.[4]

Illegal Abortion

In 2013, Patel underwent hospital treatment after claiming to have had a miscarriage.[2] She had become pregnant after an affair with a co-worker, and she feared revealing her pre-marital pregnancy to her conservative family.[5] Patel claimed that after the miscarriage she placed the stillborn fetus into the garbage and checked herself into a hospital in South Bend, Indiana seeking medical attention for heavy bleeding.[1] Dr. Kelly McGuire said he rushed to meet the police at the dumpsters near the Target in Mishawaka, the place where he said Purvi Patel had told doctors she left the fetus. The doctor believed there was a chance the fetus was alive. He testified the umbilical cord protruding from the mother looked healthy. The doctor testified on Tuesday about the night he examined the body of the fetus in the Target parking lot after police found the fetus in a plastic bag in a dumpster behind Moe's Southwest Grill, which her family owned, and where Patel worked. [6]

Criminal proceedings

The prosecution alleged that the miscarriage had been caused by an abortifacient per her documented text messages exchanged with her friend, even though doctors found no trace of the drugs in her body.[2] Prosecutors charged Patel with feticide for allegedly inducing an abortion, as the pills in question had been purchased online overseas, which is illegal in the United States and a majority of other developed countries.[1] Indiana's law allows for women to be convicted of attempting to end a pregnancy.[1] They also charged her with child neglect after claiming that the fetus had been born alive but was then left to die.[1]

Lung float test

The defense pathologist testified that the 23 or 24 week fetus was stillborn, with lungs insufficiently developed to breathe, while the prosecution pathologist testified that the fetus was at 25 to 30 weeks and was born alive.[1] The prosecutors used a widely discredited lung float test to determine whether the fetus took a breath after birth.[7] The procedure tests the buoyancy of the lungs in the belief that lungs that float suggest that the fetus took a breath, and the lungs in this case did float.[7] Forensic experts discredit the use of such a test in criminal proceedings because of the number of false positives on record.[8] The jury in Patel's case determined the fetus had been alive and found Patel guilty of child neglect.[7]

Appeal

On April 22, 2015, Patel filed an appeal to the ruling. Her lawyers will be challenging the feticide charge and the lung float test evidence.[9] On January 28, 2016, the Indiana Court of Appeals agreed to hear oral arguments in the appeal. A three-member panel of judges will hear arguments from both sides on May 23. [10]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Bazelon, Emily (April 1, 2015). "Purvi Patel Could Be Just the Beginning". New York Times. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 Valenti, Jessica (April 2, 2015). "It isn't justice for Purvi Patel to serve 20 years in prison for an abortion". The Guardian.
  3. ↑ Chowdhury, Jennifer (March 31, 2015). "Indiana Sentences Purvi Patel to 20 Years for Feticide". NBC News.
  4. 1 2 NBC News (2015-03-31). "INDIANAPOLIS: First woman in US sentenced for killing a fetus - WNCN: News, Weather, Raleigh, Durham, Fayetteville". WNCN. Retrieved 2015-04-15.
  5. ↑ Woolf, Nicky (February 4, 2015). "Purvi Patel found guilty of feticide and child neglect over fetus's death". Guardian. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
  6. ↑ Buckley, Madeline (January 27, 2015). "Doctor describes dumpster search for infant". South Bend Tribune. Retrieved 11 November 2015.
  7. 1 2 3 Neyfakh, Leon (February 5, 2015). "False Certainty". Slate. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
  8. ↑ Moar, JJ (March 1997). "The hydrostatic test--a valid method of determining live birth?". The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology 18 (1): 109–10. doi:10.1097/00000433-199703000-00027. PMID 9095314.
  9. ↑ Chowdhury, Jennifer (May 1, 2015). "Purvi Patel, Sentenced to 20 Years for Feticide, Files Appeal". NBC News.
  10. ↑ "Oral arguments set in Purvi Patel appeal". South Bend Tribune. January 29, 2016.
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