An Indiana woman who allegedly took abortion pills to give herself a late term abortion has been charged with neglect of a dependent. The 32 year old Purvi Patel, was arrested last July after she took abortion pills to end her 28-30 weeks pregnancy.
Patel later admitted to police that she had placed the newborn in a dumpster behind a local restaurant, which her family owns. The infant was dead at the time the baby was found.
According to a court affidavit released on to WSBT, a South Bend police investigator said Patel went to the emergency room at St. Joseph Regional Medical Center Saturday night, July 13. Doctors there believed she had recently delivered a child.
The investigator said Patel denied giving birth. She was then taken to the maternity floor for further diagnosis and treatment.
The officer said Patel eventually told medical staff she had delivered a baby in her Granger home and that she did not see the child breathing or moving and believed it was dead. Patel then told doctors she put the baby’s body in a bag and placed the baby in a trash bin behind the Super Target in Mishawaka.
Patel allegedly told doctors she was roughly two months along and had a miscarriage. But upon further examination doctors determined that Patel was probably 28 to 30 weeks into her pregnancy.
Fearing for the child, the affidavit says that an emergency room doctor drove to the Super Target and started searching the Dumpsters. He called St. Joseph County police, who joined in the search. Officers then found the newborn’s body in a trash bin behind Moe’s Southwest Grill.
According to the affidavit, after the child was located the ER physician estimated that the newborn was roughly thirty (30) weeks from conception.
Forensic Pathologist Dr. Joseph Prahlow performed an autopsy and found the baby to be 12.2″ long and weighed 1.46 pounds at the time of the examination.
Prahlow also concluded the child had been born alive and had taken a breath.
The affidavit says that Patel sent text messages admitting to a friend she was over 60 days pregnant in June of 2013 and that she had obtained two drugs from Hong Kong in an attempt to abort the child.
Patel told the friend she began taking the drugs on July 10, one of those drugs would induce labor, ending her pregnancy.
The other drug, which was not named in the affidavit, was designed to end the life of a fetus but only if it was within 9-weeks-old, according to the document.
In Indiana, babies less than 45 days old can be given up at any hospital emergency room, fire station or police station. The child is then put into the custody of the Indiana division of Family and Social Services.
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Mark Crutcher, president of Life Dynamics, Inc., a national pro-life organization located in Denton, Texas called Patel another pro-choice poster child.
Crutcher asks, “Why aren’t pro-choice advocates calling for Patel to be exonerated? After all, doesn’t the pro-choice community believe that this was her choice?”
Crutcher continues, “The fact is, if the body of this child had been found in the dumpster of an abortion clinic instead of the dumpster of a restaurant this arrest would have never happened and Patel would just be another enlightened woman exercising her constitutional right to choose.”
Patel, who faces 20 to 50 years behind bars, has just had her trial delayed for the fourth time.
