A woman charged with feticide for miscarrying her fetus has been sentenced this week by an Indiana jury to a minimum of 20 years in prison.
The ruling is absolutely unprecedented, but the law -- which led to Purvi Patel’s guilty verdict on largely circumstantial evidence -- isn’t.
In fact, since the early 1970s, over three dozen U.S. states have adapted similar statutes, albeit these are used to pursue extra felony counts solely against those who harm a pregnant woman and/or her unborn child.
In America, defendant Patel is now the first female who’s ever actually been successfully prosecuted for an aborted fetus. And, worse, there was no proof that the miscarriage she’d suffered in the summer of 2013 had been artificially induced.
Her case and conviction has troubled many women’s rights groups and legal experts alike who fear that the unjust jurisprudence could now pave the way for hundreds of other women whose pregnancies are terminated to be *legally* persecuted.
"Prosecutors in Indiana are using this very sad situation to establish that intentional abortions as well as unintentional pregnancy losses should be punished as crimes," warned Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women. “No woman should be arrested for the outcome of her pregnancy."
So far, though, only a small number of women have ever been pursued on charges of feticide in the United States, including Purvi Patel. Like hers, these were all cases where the evidence was too scant and testimonies too flimsy to result in a prison sentence.
Which means an urgent appeal to the higher courts is likely forthcoming.
