This Woman Says She Had A Miscarriage. Now She Could Face 70 Years In Prison.

[Zorra]

Source: ThinkProgress

Depending on the outcome of a hearing scheduled for Monday, a 33-year-old Indiana woman could face up to 70 years in prison for what she says was a miscarriage. Reproductive rights advocates say her case is a disturbing example of overly broad laws that essentially criminalize pregnancy.

Purvi Patel was arrested in 2013 after she went to the emergency room to seek medical treatment for heavy bleeding. After initially denying that she had been pregnant, she eventually told the staff that she had a premature delivery at home, believed the fetus was not alive, and placed it in a bag in a dumpster on her way to the hospital. Her doctors called the cops, who questioned Patel while she was still in the hospital, searched her cell phone records, and recovered the fetus.

Patel maintains that she did not abandon a living baby. “I assumed because the baby was dead there was nothing to do,” Patel later told law enforcement officials. “I’ve never been in this situation. I’ve never been pregnant before.”
snip---
State officials, meanwhile, contend they have evidence to suggest Patel attempted an illegal abortion after purchasing abortion-inducing drugs online. They say she intentionally tried to end her pregnancy — even though a toxicologist testified there was no trace of the drugs in her bloodstream — and then abandoned her living child after the termination was unsuccessful.

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/03/30/3639736/purvi-patel-sentencing/

---

It's not just LGBT who are being persecuted in Indiana.

[valerief]

1. Women are treated like shit almost the whole world over. nt

[yeoman6987]

2. The only mistake was putting it in the garbage

She probably should have taken it with her to the hospital for disposal.

[CTyankee]

31. that's what a woman I know did...she realized in a movie theatre that she was

in trouble and the fetus was aborted in the restroom...she was able to take it to the emergency room with her, but it was pretty early in the pregnancy. Maybe early second trimester. She was older and had had 6 pregnancies (and six babies all healthy) earlier so she was a little more savvy about it.

Still, she was sad that she lost the pregnancy.

[yeoman6987]

32. So sorry to hear. It is horrible she went through that.

[CTyankee]

33. She was OK actually. She was pretty resilient.

She had her kids in twos, a couple of years apart. It was a little strange to me...

She was also very well off, lived in New Canaan CT, a swanky suburb of NYC...so go figure...

[yeoman6987]

34. Good to hear!

[7962]

37. I dont understand why people will do stuff like that when it ALWAYS looks bad nt

[lark]

3. There is no mention of any evidence that the fetus was alive.

Seems like they are just harassing a woman because she's foreign and they can.
Disgusting miogynists.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

4. This is why

State officials, meanwhile, contend they have evidence to suggest Patel attempted an illegal abortion after purchasing abortion-inducing drugs online.

I thought women had a right to an abortion in this country. Man, this place (USA) is starting to give me creepy crawlers!

[lark]

7. So agree

is right. It's worrisome when states start implementing the discriminatory laws and our SCOTUS has little/no issues with that because they too support religious discrimination. If a Repug (God forbid!!!) wins the presidency, it'll probably be time to move out of here. There's got to be a government somewhere that realizes tolerance and inclusiveness and promoting the middle class are virtues not sins.

[Fla Dem]

9. Plus, the toxicologist found no evidencer

"State officials, meanwhile, contend they have evidence to suggest Patel attempted an illegal abortion after purchasing abortion-inducing drugs online. They say she intentionally tried to end her pregnancy — even though a toxicologist testified there was no trace of the drugs in her bloodstream"

Sharia law is taking over these conservative states.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

38. make up unreasonable laws, then institute "Guilt Until Proven Innocent" rules,

Then throw out evidence that proves innocence.

[Warpy]

29. They're displaying colossal ignorance at all levels here

RU-486 only works as an abortifacent in the earliest stages of pregnancy, meaning she wouldn't have delivered a premature fetus, she'd only have delivered blood and a few clots. This sounds like it was too big to flush, something that would not be the case in a medical abortion.

Never mind that abortion is still legal, even in Indiana where the Vatican controls things.

This prosecutor is overreaching, probably up for reelection and trying to grandstand. He needs to be stopped immediately.

What they've got here is the illegal disposal of medical waste/human remains.

Except it's in Indiana.

[Enthusiast]

5. Religious extremists are unfit to govern.

Anywhere.

[Dont call me Shirley]

17. +1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000...where's the infinity symbol on the keyboard?

[Earth_First]

30. ∞

(ALT 236 for future reference...)

[MatthewStLouis]

23. Yes, plus infinity!

+?

[blkmusclmachine]

6. First they came for the gay people, then they came for the women, then they came for the atheists,

then they came for the liberals/progressives, then they came for the ...

[SoapBox]

14. Exactly.

[Politicalboi]

28. And I'm all 3

[Judi Lynn]

8. Incredibly backward, ignorant. At some point right-wing officials need to remove their snouts

from snuffling up the skirts of the women of the world, stand up on their feet, and act like human beings.

Unpardonable nosiness, invasion of privacy.

This is persecution of the most repugnant form.

Hope a sane person will be involved in the decision made from the hearing.

[jeff47]

10. I like how they convicted her of crimes that contradict each other.

It adds a nice truthiness to the charges.

[Fla Dem]

11. Sentenced to 41 years in prison.

Patel was sentenced to 41 years in prison on Monday afternoon, according to local outlet 95.3 MNC. She plans to appeal.

UPDATE

NewsCenter 16 reports more details on the sentencing, concluding that Patel faces up to 20 years behind bars. She received 30 years in prison for the charge of neglecting a dependent, with 10 suspended. She was also sentenced to six years for the charge of feticide, but would be able to serve that time concurrently.

[BainsBane]

12. They should be able to tell if the baby breathed air or not

and if it did, then it is murder. If the baby was not born alive, she shouldn't be doing jail time.

It sounds like the case was handled improperly. I hope she benefits from a good appellate attorney. However, if she did kill a living baby, prison is warranted.

[strategery blunder]

19. I read in a previous article about this case that they used a discredited test for that

The article I read alleged the prosecution used a test that had been used, in one form or another, since medieval times, and said test had all the credibility of the witch trials.

Of course, that was never told to the jury...the only way I can conclude the jury found "no reasonable doubt" was if a sharia judge did not properly instruct them on what reasonable doubt is.

[BainsBane]

20. The linked article talks about the emotional reaction

people had to her putting the baby/fetus in the dumpster. That probably swayed the jury.

[SoapBox]

13. INtolerence.

[blackspade]

15. Yet another injustice out of Indiana.

[DebJ]

16. I don't understand why they couldn't determine the age of the fetus.

That doesn't make sense to me.

[mountain grammy]

18. This is chilling.

[handmade34]

21. I want to be part of a

movement to save this woman from fucking, idiotic, backward christian white man thinking this kind of stuff has no place in the 21st century… Women everywhere should be marching in the streets, boycotting, writing, protesting………

this stuff makes me livid beyond belief…

deny a woman any control over her body and them send her to prison for being desperate… this is middle ages behavior… fuck the jury, fuck the Gov of Indiana, fuck fundy Christians… this is not right!!

...There’s another reason Patel’s case deserves scrutiny. It has to do with how the prosecution went about establishing the fetus’s condition upon birth. At the center of its presentation was a method that involved removing the fetus’s lungs and placing them in a container of liquid in order to see if they would float. The theory behind the method, which was developed during the 17th century but has been questioned by modern medical experts, holds that if a lung does float, it means the baby drew at least one breath of air before expiring, and that if it sinks, the fetus was already dead by the time it left the womb.
The procedure, known as the “lung float test” or the “the hydrostatic test,” was carried out…
“It’s an absolutely discredited test,” said Gregory Davis, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of Kentucky. “It boggles my mind that in the 21st century … this test is still being relied upon to determine whether a baby is born alive or dead.”...

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2015/02/purvi_patel_feticide_why_did_the_pathologist_use_the_discredited_lung_float.html

[blondie58]

22. This is so Sad.

The poor Woman. Even if she purchased online drugs, Last I checked, abortion was legal in parts of the US.
At the very least, she needs a good attorney.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

24. I had a student with that name who would be that age. I am horrified.

Abortion is legal in this country. Case closed. And she may not have even had an abortion.

[Jack Rabbit]

25. Where there a Christian homophobes . . .

. . . there are also Christian misogynists.

Funny how that works.

[HassleCat]

26. Highly Motivated

They certainly take a keen interest in the fetus, and they'll go to great lengths, spare no expense, to prosecute women for crimes that probably haven't even happened. Too bad they don't get all fired up to do something about other social problems.

[countryjake]

27. Proof that Feticide laws can be used to punish pregnant women, any one of us.

And it's also proof that the anti-abortion activist's campaign against Women's Rights has never been just about abortion, but extends to miscarriage, stillbirth, and the "proper" conduct of any pregnant female.

That the extremely unscientific "float" test was used to determine "life" in this poor woman's case is only one of the outrages of the ordeal that Indiana has put Purvi Patel through...that the rights of her baby have totally superseded every single one of her rights as a living breathing woman should be something that frightens us all.

Long before Roe versus Wade, pregnant women were at the mercy of a government guided by local public opinion and a glowing, beatific visage of a person creating life. Those of us who did not suit that divine mold, who were immersed in endless poverty, considered of "loose" morals, abused by "family" circumstance, or of any racial minority status, at all, could find themselves in deep shit if any little thing went wrong during a gestation or, goddess forbid, they were faced with an unwanted pregnancy with no legal recourse whatsoever to end it.

The many states that now uphold laws against Feticide to successfully persecute, prosecute, and punish a woman, tells me that they have hop-skipped right over any rights to privacy that Roe might have provided us regarding abortion and that anti-women activists, those "pro-life" protagonists, the blowhards who are perpetually marching the hardest and loudest against us, are doing what they've meant to do all along...control women's bodies, absolutely.

[question everything]

35. Who does indiana think it is? Texas? (nt)

[LiberalElite]

36. I expected to read this was in Central America -

[Orsino]

39. You smuggle a uterus into Indiana, you get what's coming to you.

We are a nation of laws passed by men.

[Zorra]

40. ^