Today on my way home from work I was listening to the CBC (as I always do) and on The Current with Anna Maria Temonti they featured the Bei Bei Shuai "murder" case happening in Indiana.
For those of you uninformed (as I was until today when I went from uniformed to OUTRAGED!!) Bei Bei Shuai is a young woman originally from Shanghai, who was 33 weeks pregnant and living in Indiana when she tried to commit suicide by ingesting rat poison after her boyfriend, father of the baby, announced he was married and abandoned her to return to his family. Her friends found out what she had done and rushed her to hospital. She survived, but the fetus she was carrying died shortly after an emergency caesarean section. Because her daughter died Bei Bei was charged with murder, yes MURDER of her newborn daughter.
WHAT THE FUCK?! I am sure I am not the only one who is completely baffled by this. So I ask, WHAT is happening to the US? How have they moved soooooooooooo far to the right? How is this unlike the stoning of Muslim women who are raped through no fault of their own? Bei Bei was depressed and committed a desperate act that she hoped would end her life (which at the time included a pregnant body). It was not her intent to end the pregnancy but her LIFE! her WHOLE life! If anything she was murdering herself not exclusively her baby!!! Not to mention the fact that she clearly had some serious mental health issues ie. DEPRESSION.
To quote Katha Pollit in The Nation: "To call what Shuai did murder seems to overlook the fact that she was trying to kill herself. But this prosecution is unfortunately in line with a national trend of criminalizing the behavior of pregnant women whether through drug use, self-abortion—even, as in one case, falling down the stairs. The state law under which Shuai is charged was passed in 1979, as part of a post-Roe wave of “unborn victims of violence” laws that made the fetus a separate victim in crimes against pregnant women that caused her to miscarry or die—for example, attacks by muggers or abusive partners"
Clearly this law does not apply here, yet she was charged and let me tell you things are NOT looking good for this woman who may possibly end up in jail for the next 25 years. I have never been one to sign petitions but this is so incredibly, ridiculously preposterously wrong that I will sign and encourage EVERYONE to get informed and act to change things for Bei Bei and other pregnant women . http://www.change.org/petitions/protect-pregnant-women-free-bei-bei
Thanks for the interest in the case! I'm working for Bei Bei's Defense Fund, and we have a website for direct donations for Bei Bei's legal expenses: freebeibei.com. We are also on social media if you'd like to continue following the case (Twitter: @FreeBeiBei and Facebook: facebook.com/freebeibei). Again, thanks for helping us spread the word!
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