Indiana Charges Suicidal Pregnant Woman With "Feticide" and Homicide | AlterNet

In December of 2010, Bei Bei Shuai, a 34-year-old pregnant woman living in Indiana, attempted to end her own life. She did so in one of the slowest and most painful ways possible: she consumed rat poison. With help from friends who intervened, however, she made it to a hospital and survived. The premature newborn she delivered by undergoing cesarean surgery did not. An Indiana prosecutor’s response has been to charge her with the crimes of murder (defined to include viable fetuses) and feticide (defined to include ending a human pregnancy at any stage). She has been arrested, denied bail, and will, unless bail is granted, be imprisoned for as long as her case proceeds through the court system.

National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), through Indiana-based counsel Kathrine Jack, is working with Indiana defense attorney Linda Pence to secure Ms. Shuai’s freedom and to defend the basic idea that when the person suffering from mental illness, severe depression, or any other health problem happens to be a pregnant woman, she does not lose her right to be treated like other human beings experiencing the same problems.

Pregnant women are not immune from the mental illness or severe depression that leads some people to attempt to end their lives. Indiana, like virtually every other state in the country, addresses suicide and attempted suicide as a public health issue, not a crime. Prosecutors simply may not decide that a suicide attempt is a public health issue for everyone except pregnant women. Moreover, there is wide consensus that subjecting pregnant women to special criminal penalties does not work. Rather, it undermines legitimate interests in maternal, fetal, and child health by stigmatizing pregnant women and by making them vulnerable to punishment if they seek help of any kind.

If this prosecution is allowed to go forward, the law will not just apply to one desperate pregnant woman who attempted suicide by swallowing rat poison – it will create legal precedent that makes every woman criminally liable for the outcome of her pregnancy. This precedent would mean that women who undergo significant risks to their lives and health by bringing forth life, sometimes undergoing major surgery to do so, may then be arrested as criminals if they are unable to guarantee the birth of a live and healthy baby. In addition, if Ms. Shuai’s prosecution is upheld, it leaves no doubt that women who intentionally end their pregnancies will go to jail as murderers if Roe is ever overturned.