Will Purvi Patel’s plea fall on deaf ears?

CHICAGO, IL- Come May 23, the Indiana Supreme Court will hear the oral arguments in the Purvi Patel foeticide case in which a 33-year-old Indian American woman has been sentenced to a stiff 20-year prison term after being convicted of illegally inducing the abortion of her foetus.

But the harsh verdict delivered a year ago has been stirring a hornet’s nest, triggering a debate on the misuse of a foeticide law that was not intended to punish women who try to end their pregnancies.

No wonder, women’s organizations have been raising a hue and cry day in and day out. Indeed, the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, the South Asian Americans Leading Together, the National Advocates for Pregnant Women and the Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice have backed the appeal filed by Patel’s lawyers.

5 years’ probation

Patel, a resident of Granger, Indiana, was initially sentenced to a six-year prison term for foeticide, a 20-year prison term for felony child neglect, with a 10-year suspended sentence on the neglect count, to be followed by five years’ of probation, which results in total of 41 years’ worth of punishment for what may as well have been a miscarriage.

Her case has caused an international controversy about the prosecution of pregnant women accused of intentionally or recklessly causing miscarriages or stillbirth. She is the first woman in the United States to be charged, convicted, and sentenced on a foeticide charge.

According to prosecutors, Patel was 28 weeks pregnant, just two months away from being able to naturally give birth to her baby. Instead, she self-induced her abortion, cut the umbilical cord, put the foetus in a grocery bag and tossed it into a trash can behind her family-owned Moe’s Southwest Grill restaurant.

Patel was a child any parent would dream of. For eight years, which means from the age of 23 when lesser mortals would be busy in fun and frolic, she ran her family’ business Moe’s Southwest Grill.

She worked for seven days a week, round the year, then came back home, took care of cooking at home and also managed her elderly grandparents who were in their nineties.

 

Conservative family

 

Eight long years, she did it nonstop as the main support base of her ageing parents. She could not think of marriage, that too from outside the conservative Hindu circle of her family. And then in 2013, her life turned upside down.

To put it simply, while in her unmarried lonely state, she had sex with a non-Hindu, non-Asian, co-worker, which resulted in an unwanted pregnancy. With her family’ conservative background, she was frightened and scared of not just society but even her own parents and the intense rebuke that she would face for that.

Not surprisingly, she was completely lost and dumbfounded and did not know what to do. She knew that she would not get any support from her family, nor the man who was the cause of her situation, nor could she run the risk of going to medical clinic lest her family’s name be disgraced in society.

She turned to private help, spoke to one of her friends and then used internet to try and find ways to carry out abortion. Ultimately in approximately 20th week of her pregnancy, her foetus was aborted in her bathroom and then scared as hell, she wrapped it in a bag and put it away in a dumpster near her restaurant.

 

 

Unfortunately the bleeding was not stopping and she went for medical help to a hospital. What she got in return was an accusation and a further trial, dominated more by the desire to deliver an agenda of the conservative society, which changed her life.

Patel was charged in 2013 for ‘feticide’ and ‘child neglect’, was convicted and is now serving a 20 years prison term. Laws against feticide were drafted to prevent violence against pregnant women by a third party assailant, be it a significant other, a spouse, a family member or a stranger. Alas, here the same law was used against the woman herself, the very person the law was supposed to protect.

 

Contradictory charges

Furthermore, she was accused of both ‘feticide’ and ‘child neglect’, two entirely contradictory situations at the same time, to ensure that she would be convicted of one crime or the other, come what may. She became only the second woman in US, charged for killing her foetus and the first one to be convicted.

Advocates in Indiana and people around the nation have rallied around Patel. Reproductive rights organizations called the prosecution a back-door attempt to criminalize women for abortions and a misguided use of feticide laws – which are intended to protect pregnant women and punish people who harm them, such as abusive partners.

As it stands now, laws that criminalize abortion mainly target doctors. Patel’s case represents a new effort to punish women as well. Moreover, the prosecution and conviction of Patel set a precedent for punishing women who use medication abortion, who give birth at home and their baby does not survive, or who suffer a miscarriage or other pregnancy complication.

Abortion laws

 

As Shivana Jorawar, a reproductive health and justice policy advocate and a board member of Jahajee Sisters, a New York-based organization empowering Indo-Caribbean women, advises, it is time to raise one’s voice on sex-selective abortion laws, and learn about how pregnant women continue to be criminalized.

Even Deepa Iyer, noted author and former director of SAALT, wants women to host a discussion in their communities about the impact of Patel’s case and reproductive rights affecting Asian American women.

Patel’s case opens the door for any woman who expresses doubt about her pregnancy to be charged if she miscarries or has a stillbirth. It’s a terrifying thought, but one that is already impacting real women.