Tell Susan B. Anthony List to Demand Purvi's Release!
Marjorie Dannenfelser
Purvi Patel is currently serving 20 years of a 40-year sentence in an Indiana prison; prosecutors said she ordered abortion-inducing drugs online and tried to end her pregnancy. A pro-life movement that is truly against punishing women who have abortions would not sit idly by while an actual woman sits in prison on a feticide conviction. And yet it does.
Purvi's case is not unique. In Indiana, Bei Bei Shuai was charged with murder and feticide after a suicide attempt while pregnant. In Georgia, Kenlissia Jones was arrested and charged with murder after terminating her pregnancy with pills she ordered online. In Tennessee, Anna Yocca was charged with attempted first-degree murder after using a coat hanger to try to terminate her pregnancy. There are more, and sadly there will be more – especially as laws make abortion unjustifiably difficult to access through the health care system.
No matter what the pro-life movement wants to claim it believes, there is no excuse for criminalizing pregnancy outcomes. There is no excuse for criminalizing self-induced abortion. Most of all, there is no excuse for loudly condemning punishing women who have abortions and failing to condemn the imprisonment of a woman serving 20 years for self-induced abortion. Tell Susan B. Anthony List to call for the release of Purvi Patel,
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To:
Marjorie Dannenfelser
From:
[Your Name]
For the last few weeks, you and other anti-abortion leaders have said that punishing people who obtain abortions is not in line with the goals of the pro-life movement.
Despite these attempts at saving face, women have been handcuffed and charged – and are currently serving time – in the United States for terminating their pregnancies. Fetal homicide laws have been championed by your movement.
If you maintain that the goal of anti-abortion policies has never been to punish people who have abortions, will you come out today and call for the immediate release of Purvi Patel, a woman of color who is currently sitting in prison in Indiana for terminating her pregnancy?