FETICIDE: more on Bei Bei Shuai

Woman who attempted suicide while pregnant is accused of murder. Prosecution would be a 'significant step' towards abortion being outlawed, says lawyer for pregnant women's group

Ewen MacAskill in Washington : guardian.co.uk,  15 April 2011

Bei Bei Shuai is being held in jail in Indianapolis. Photograph: Michael Conroy/AP

 

A woman accused of murdering her four-day-old baby girl by trying to kill herself with rat poison while pregnant has become a cause célèbre for US women's groups and civil liberties organisations.
Bei Bei Shuai, 34, a restaurant owner who moved to the US from China 10 years ago, was pregnant and planning to marry her boyfriend until she learned late last year that he was already married and he would be abandoning her.
A few days later, on 23 December, she went to a hardware store, bought rat poison pellets, went back to her flat in Indianapolis and swallowed some. But she did not die immediately and was persuaded by friends to go to hospital.
She was given treatment to counteract the poison and gave birth on New Year's Eve, but her daughter, Angel, suffered seizures and died after four days.
Shuai then had a second breakdown and spent a month in a psychiatric ward, after which she left to stay with friends and began rebuilding her life.
But in March she was arrested and charged with murder and attempted foeticide. She now faces life imprisonment.

"This case has huge implications for pregnant women, not only in Indiana but across the country," said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union.

"If we allowed the state to put a woman in jail for anything that could pose a risk to her pregnancy, there would be nothing to stop the police putting in jail a woman who has a drink of wine or who smokes. So where do you draw the line?"

Kolbi-Molinas said there had been an alarming rise in the number of such cases across the US. Some women's groups put the rise down to pressure on prosecutors from anti-abortion groups.

Shuai has been held in Marion County jail, Indianapolis, where she is segregated from other prisoners. She was last in court for a bail hearing on Wednesday but the judge, Sheila Carlisle, has not yet ruled whether she will be kept in custody. Carlisle is expected to begin hearing a motion for the case's dismissal next month.
Linda Pence, Shuai's lawyer, described the decision to prosecute her as "horrible" and "outrageous". She disputes the prosecution's claim that the baby died from rat poison, saying that Shuai received a host of medicines at the hospital, many of which could have caused the death.
The National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) group is helping to mount the defence.
Kathrine Jack, a lawyer with the NAPW, who meets Shuai about once a week, said that after the initial suicide attempt, she had regained hope. "She has been on a rollercoaster," said the lawyer, who argued that women such as Shuai should, rather than being locked up, receive medical and psychiatric help.
Jack, who has been involved in dozens of similar cases where women were charged as a result of incidents while pregnant, said: "Prosecutions like this are increasing in the US and are a result of anti-abortion rhetoric and movements that seek to give the foetus rights above and beyond those of women.
"If it was allowed to stand, it would not outlaw abortion right away but it would be a significant step along the way."
Dave Rimstidt, part of the prosecution team, said careful consideration had gone into the decision to charge Shuai.
"This is a very unique case. Every charging decision is very difficult and goes through a process where we consider all the facts, all the circumstances, and under this situation, we believe we've charged the two charges we can prove," he said.
Utah, Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa and South Carolina are among states to have pressed ahead with cases involving pregnant women and their foetuses, most of which have related to women taking illegal drugs during pregnancy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/15/woman-attempted-suicide-pregnant-accused

FETICIDE (from Wikipedia)

Feticide or foeticide is an act that causes the death of a fetus. In a legal context, "fetal homicide" or "child destruction" refers to the deliberate or incidental killing of a fetus due to a criminal human act, such as a blow to the abdomen of a pregnant woman. As a medical term, feticide is destruction of a fetus, for example as the first phase of a legal induced abortion. Feticide does not refer to the death of a fetus from entirely natural causes, such as the miscarriage of a pregnancy.

Fetal homicide

Laws in the United States

Fetal homicide laws in the United States

  "Homicide" or "murder".

  Other crime against fetus.

  Depends on age of fetus.

  Assaulting woman.

In the U.S., most crimes of violence are covered by state law, not federal law. Thirty-five (35) states currently recognize the "unborn child" (the term usually used) or fetus as a homicide victim, and 25 of those states apply this principle throughout the period of pre-natal development. These laws do not apply to legal induced abortions. Federal and state courts have consistently held that these laws do not contradict the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings on abortion.
In 2004, Congress enacted and President Bush signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which recognizes the "child in utero" as a legal victim if he or she is injured or killed during the commission of any of 68 existing federal crimes of violence. These crimes include some acts that are federal crimes no matter where they occur (e.g., certain acts of terrorism), crimes in federal jurisdictions, crimes within the military system, crimes involving certain federal officials, and other special cases. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."
Of the 35 states that recognize fetal homicide, 25 apply the principle throughout the period of pre-natal development, while 10 establish protection at some later stage, which varies from state to state. For example, California treats the killing of a fetus as homicide, but does not treat the killing of an embryo (prior to approximately eight weeks) as homicide, by construction of the California Supreme Court. Some other states do not consider the killing of a fetus to be homicide until the fetus has reached quickening or viability.
Unlawful abortion may be considered "feticide", even if the pregnant woman consents to the abortion.

Child destruction
In English law, "child destruction" is the crime of killing a child "capable of being born alive", before it has "a separate existence".The Crimes Act 1958 defined "capable of being born alive" as 28 weeks' gestation, later reduced to 24 weeks. The 1990 Amendment to the Abortion Act 1967 means a medical practitioner cannot be guilty of the crime. The charge of child destruction is rare. A woman who had an unsafe abortion while 7½ months pregnant was given a suspended sentence of 12 months in 2007; the Crown Prosecution Service was unaware of any similar conviction.

Use during legal abortion

In abortions after 20 weeks, an injection of digoxin or potassium chloride to stop the fetal heart can be used to achieve feticide. Less commonly, urea may be injected into the amniotic sac, or the umbilical cord may be cut, resulting in the fetus bleeding to death. Fetal death causes the tissues to soften, making removal of fetal parts in a dilation and evacuation procedure easier. In the United States, the Supreme Court has ruled that a legal ban on intact dilation and extraction procedures does not apply if feticide is completed before surgery starts. When used before labor induction, feticide prevents the possible complication of live birth. The possibility of unsuccessful feticide—resulting in birth of a live infant—is a malpractice concern.
The most common method of selective reduction—a procedure to reduce the number of fetuses in a multifetus pregnancy—is feticide via a chemical injection into the selected fetus or fetuses. The reduction procedure is usually performed during the first trimester of pregnancy. It often follows detection of a congenital defect in the selected fetus or fetuses, but can also reduce the risks of carrying more than three fetuses to term.