Attorneys for Purvi Patel, who was convicted under Indiana’s feticide law after ending her own pregnancy, have filed an appeal, reports WFYI.
She is represented pro bono by Stanford law professor Lawrence Marshall who founded the Center for Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University and Indiana University law professor Joel Schumm.
“What I generally gravitate toward are cases where it seems like an intense passion has interfered with dispassionate interpretation and application of the law,” Marshall told the South Bend Tribune in April. “It struck me that this case may be a textbook example of that phenomenon.”
Patel showed up at the emergency room bleeding in 2013. After some hesitancy, Patel told doctors she lost the pregnancy and that she left the remains in a dumpster.
The National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum has joined other women and reproductive rights groups in supporting Patel’s appeal. She is currently serving 20 years of a 46 year prison sentence.
In their appeal her attorneys wrote “there are powerful reasons to challenge the conclusion there was a live birth.”
You can read more of their arguments in WFYI..