Indiana court hears appeal of woman convicted of feticide

Indiana appellate courts last week considered a defense attorney’s request to free the first woman ever charged, convicted, and sentenced for feticide.

Attorney Lawrence C. Marshall said the court falsely accused Purvi Patel of killing her baby. He labeled the loss of her child a miscarriage.

But the state claims Patel’s child was born alive and died from neglect after she bagged him and threw him in a trash bin. Deputy Attorney General Ellen Meilaender said the evidence of blood inside the bag shows the baby’s heart was still beating.

Marshall countered saying any attempt to save the child would have made little difference other than slowing down the baby’s death.

Judge Nancy Vaidik didn’t buy that argument, noting someone with cancer who gets shot is still a victim of murder.

“I mean, we don’t say, ‘Oh, they only had another five hours to live.’ And that’s what I’m struggling with,” said said, according to The Indianapolis Star.

Since her conviction in 2013, Patel’s case has caused controversy over the prosecution of women who abort their babies at home or with the help of an organization. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Abortion activists are calling this the first state prosecution of a woman on the grounds of feticide.

Police officials arrested Patel in 2013 when she sought treatment from a hospital in Mishawaka for profuse bleeding after giving birth. They found the baby later in the dumpster behind Patel’s parents’ restaurant.

Patel is a 35-year-old Indian-American who at the time lived with her parents and grandparents. According to court records, she performed a home abortion by taking abortion-inducing drugs she purchased through a pharmacy in Hong Kong. But doctors said they couldn’t find records of the drugs.

In light of the court records, the state said Patel may have been traumatized by the experience, driven to abort her child out of fear her family would discover she had an affair with a married man.

“Any one of us could have been Purvi Patel,” the abortion giant Planned Parenthood said In a tweet. “How else will state governments punish women for their reproductive decisions?”

In a similar case in 2012, an Idaho woman self-induced an abortion, and Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life organization Susan B. Anthony List, told NPR that woman should not be punished.

“We do not think women should be criminalized. … Criminal sanctions or any kind of sanctions are appropriate for abortionists and not for women,” Dannenfelser said.

But questions remain as to whether Patel knew her 1.5-pound baby boy was still alive when she disposed of his body. The lines between abortion and feticide are still hazy. If abortion is legal, what makes feticide illegal?

The Associated Press contributed to this report.