Career
Her case has caused 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 feticide charge. This has also been compared to the prosecution of Bei Bei Shuai under similar circumstances.
In 2013, Patel underwent hospital treatment after claiming to have had a miscarriage.
Patel claimed that after the miscarriage she placed the stillborn fetus into the garbage and checked herself into a hospital in South Bend, Indiana seeking medical attention for heavy bleeding. Doctor Kelly McGuire said he rushed to meet the police at the dumpsters near the Target in Mishawaka, the place where he said Purvi Patel had told doctors she left the fetus.
The doctor believed there was a chance the fetus was alive. He testified the umbilical cord protruding from the mother looked healthy.
The doctor testified on Tuesday about the night he examined the body of the fetus in the Target parking lot after police found the fetus in a plastic bag in a dumpster behind Moe"s Southwesrt Grill, which her family owned, and where Patel worked.
The prosecution alleged that the miscarriage had been caused by an abortifacient per her documented text messages exchanged with her friend, even though doctors found no trace of the drugs in her body. Prosecutors charged Patel with feticide for allegedly inducing an abortion, as the pills in question had been purchased online overseas, which is illegal in the United States and a majority of other developed countries. Indiana"s law allows for women to be convicted of attempting to end a pregnancy.
Lung float test
The prosecutors in Patel"s case used a widely discredited lung float test to determine whether the fetus took a breath after birth.
The procedure tests the buoyancy of the lungs in the belief that lungs that float suggest that the fetus took a breath, and the lungs in this case did float. Forensic experts discr the use of such a test in criminal proceedings because of the number of false positives on record.
The jury in Patel"s case determined the fetus had been alive and found Patel guilty of child neglect. Appeal
On April 22, 2015, Patel filed an appeal to the ruling.
Her lawyers, headed by Lawrence C. Marshall, who is working pro bono, will be challenging the feticide charge and the lung float test evidence.
