The Indiana Court of Appeals has overturned the
feticide conviction of Purvi Patel by taking abortion-inducing drugs, NBC News
reported. However, the court upheld a lower-level felony neglect of a dependent
conviction. It carries a sentence of 6 months to 3 years in jail. The case will
go back to the lower court for retrial.
Patel, now 35, was convicted of neglect and feticide last
year, two years after her self-induced abortion at her family's home.
The appeals court ruled that the state Legislature didn't
intend for the feticide law to be used to prosecute women for their own
abortions.
The case attracted national attention and women’s groups
came forward to support patel.
Patel, who was 32 at the time, used drugs brought online
from Hong Kong for abortion because she feared
her family would discover she had been impregnated by a married man, according
to documents. Patel lived with her parents and grandparents in Granger, a city
just northeast of South Bend along the Michigan border.
On March 30, 2015 a judge in Indiana’s
St. Joseph
County court sentenced Purvi Patel, to 41 years for the crimes of feticide and
neglect of a dependent. She was to serve 20 of the 41 years in prison.
Throughout the trial, Patel maintained that she had a miscarriage. Prosecutors however,
claimed she attempted to terminate her pregnancy but gave birth to a baby who
she then neglected leading to its death.
This was not the first time in the U.S. that a
woman has been arrested and charged with a crime for terminating her pregnancy,
but it was the first time any woman has been convicted of it.
According to the charge sheet filed by Galen Pelletier,
detective with South Bend Police Department, on July 13,2013, at approximately
9:24 pm, Patel presented to the emergency room at St.
Joseph Hospital in Mishawaka, Indiana.
She was bleeding from her vaginal area. The emergency
personnel believed that she had recently delivered a child, which she
denied.
Dr Tracy Byrne found an umbilical cord was protruding. But
Patel again denied she had just delivered a baby and claimed that she had not
even been pregnant. Dr. Byrne requested a second opinion of Dr Kelly ,
who was positive that Patel had just delivered a child.
Concerned for the child's welfare, doctors continued to
question her about the
whereabouts of the child. Eventually, she told the medical
staff that she had delivered a baby in her home in Granger, Indiana and she did
not see it breathing or moving and believed it to be dead. She then put the
dead body in a bag and placed it in a dumpster behind the Super Target. She
further told medical personnel that she was roughly two months along and had a
miscarriage.
But doctor's believed that she had been twenty eight (28) to
thirty (30) weeks post fertilization.
Fearing for the child, Dr McGuire then drove to the Super
Target and began searching in
the dumpsters. He also called the St. Joseph County Police,
who joined in the search. They located the body in a dumpster and Dr McGuire
determined that it was deceased. Dr McGuire's opinion was that the child was
pre-mature and roughly thirty (30) weeks from conception. His external
examination noted no reason why the child would not have survived, but cautioned
that it was based only upon an external examination.
Later forensic pathologist, Dr Joseph Prahlow determined
that the child was pre-mature but at least twenty eight weeks from conception.
Dr. Prahlow further concluded that in his opinion, the child had been born
alive and had taken a breath. Further testing and investigation are pending.
Officers secured a search warrant for the phone of Patel and
found that she discussed the pregnancy with at least one friend.
Patel admitted that she had obtained two drugs from Hong Kong, in an attempt to abort the child.
According to Dr McGuire, one of those drugs would induce
labor, thereby ending her pregnancy.
The other drug was designed to end the life of a fetus, but
only if it was within nine weeks old. Dr McGuire advised officers that the
second drug would have no effect on a fetus that was twenty-eight or more weeks
along.
Patel is the second woman in Indiana to be charged with feticide
following the prolonged criminal prosecution of Bei Bei Shuai, who lost her
baby when she tried to kill herself.
Shuai, who is from China and Patel are Asians, a
fact which was noted by some.
