25 May 2013

Mideast News & Politics

Update on Bei Bei Shuai: Bad News From Indiana

Authors: Politics from The Nation Bei Bei Shuai. (AP Photo/Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department) Bad news came from Indiana on May 11. The state Supreme Court has refused to review charges of attempted feticide and murder against Bei Bei Shuai. Just before Christmas 2010, Shuai, who was thirty-three weeks pregnant, attempted to kill herself by consuming rat poison after her boyfriend, father of the baby, abruptly announced he was married and abandoned her to return to his family. Rushed to the hospital, she had a Caesarean section, but her newborn daughter died after a few days of life. (Here’s my column on the case.) Despite amicus briefs from eighty respected experts and relevant medical and social organizations—the state of Indiana, for reasons best known to itself, will do its best to send Shuai to prison. Potential sentence: forty-five to sixty-five years. The only good news is that after spending 435 days in jail, Shuai is now out on bail. The message to women is clear: you are criminally liable to the state for your conduct during pregnancy, even if you are mentally ill, emotionally disturbed, or whatever you want to call the extreme psychological state in which people try to kill themselves after receiving

Read more http://www.thenation.com/blog/168254/update-bei-bei-shuai-bad-news-indiana

Add comment

We only welcome and encourage constructive and respectful comments. Please avoid slurs, hate speech, general abuse against other participants, or any incitement of violence.
We reserve the right to delete your comments and block your participation with continued abuse.


Security code
Refresh

From Our Partners

Your Most Powerful Currency: Your Vote

Your Most Powerful Currency: Your Vote

As I write this, a brave young woman sits in a hospital bed halfway across the world, recovering from a...

Why The Palestinian State of Mind Matters

Why The Palestinian State of Mind Matters

Politics is inextricably bound up with everyday life in Palestine. This sentence at first sounds so obvious that it seems...

Aha! Moments From Oprah, Pastor Rick Warren and the Qur'an

Aha! Moments From Oprah, Pastor Rick Warren and the Qur'an

I’ll admit it. I have always been a big fan of Oprah Winfrey. Growing up, I remember faithfully watching her...

Men Step Up To Fight Sexual Harassment in Egypt

Men Step Up To Fight Sexual Harassment in Egypt

Reports of sexual harassment in Egypt have risen drastically in the past few months. The problem, while not new to...

The Mercy of the Prophet Muhammad

The Mercy of the Prophet Muhammad

Ever since I was a child growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s, the predominant image of Islam I have...