( CNN ) An Indiana jury sentenced a woman who says she had a miscarriage to 20 years in prison . In 2013 , Purvi Patel showed up at a hospital emergency room suffering from severe vaginal bleeding . According to court documents , at first she denied that she had been pregnant but later told doctors that she had a miscarriage and delivered a stillborn fetus which , she said , she placed in a bag in a dumpster . Patel was later charged with feticide and felony neglect of a dependent , though these charges are decidedly contradictory . `` Feticide '' would require Patel to have terminated a pregnancy while the fetus was still in the womb . On the other hand , `` felony neglect of a dependent '' requires delivering a live fetus and then neglecting it . As Amanda Marcotte of Slate pointed out in February , Patel `` was convicted both of killing a baby and killing a fetus . '' The only thing more preposterous than this is that Patel was charged in the first place . The evidence against her has been shaky from the start . Initially , police questioned Patel when she was still in the hospital without an attorney present . Prosecutors would later introduce text messages indicating that Patel had purchased miscarriage-inducing drugs , but there was no evidence Patel took the drugs . In fact , they did n't show up in blood tests just after she miscarried . Nonetheless , after five hours of deliberation , a jury convicted Patel of two entirely contradictory crimes based on entirely circumstantial evidence . And on March 30 , 2015 , she was given a 30-year-sentence on the felony neglect charge , 10 of which were suspended . She 'll serve a concurrent six-year sentence for feticide . Patel is the second pregnant woman to be charged under Indiana 's anti-choice `` feticide '' law . In 2011 , Bei Bei Shuai was charged with feticide after she attempted to commit suicide when she was eight months pregnant . In 2013 , lawyers announced Shuai had reached a plea agreement just before her trial was set to begin . Still , both cases presented troubled pregnant women who needed help from medical authorities and their government . But Indiana 's harsh anti-abortion laws , and the broader culture that seeks to control the decisions pregnant women can make about their own bodies , make women far less likely to reach out for this help . Conservatives like to say that women are the `` victims of abortion '' and that laws such as the Indiana `` feticide '' measure are intended to `` protect '' them . Years ago , the president of the anti-choice Susan B. Anthony List made assurances that the specter of women being prosecuted and jailed under anti-choice laws was nothing more than fearmongering by pro-choice activists . The website of the Ohio Right to Life association similarly argues that `` no one is interested in sending women to jail . '' And in fact , the Indiana `` feticide '' law was plainly intended to criminalize `` knowing or intentional termination of another 's pregnancy . '' But there 's no escaping the reality it has been used to turn pregnant women into criminals . So much for not sending women to jail . Those who care about the rights of pregnant women should be deeply concerned . After all , Patel was convicted based on text messages about miscarriage-inducing drugs , not evidence she had used or even purchased such drugs . In Shuai 's case , it was presumed that the intent of her attempted suicide was to terminate her pregnancy and thus she was charged with feticide . So what else might be considered a `` deliberate attempt '' to terminate one 's own pregnancy ? If a woman knew about the risks of too vigorous exercise and miscarriage but exercised anyway ? Merely googling abortion-inducing drugs ? Telling a friend you 've thought about having an abortion ? The message from Purvi Patel 's conviction is clear . After all , there have always been and will always be women who try to terminate their pregnancies . Laws like Indiana 's and cases like Patel 's do n't change that . What they do is make women hide , avoid medical attention and put their lives at even greater risk . In Texas , which last year enacted some of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the nation and shuttered the majority of its abortion services clinics , abortion rates have indeed declined but not in proportion to the severity of such measures . Researchers suggest that 's partly because rates of self-abortion , which then go unreported in the statistics , are increasing . And anecdotal evidence suggests this is the case . Before Roe v. Wade made abortion legal in the United States , according to the Guttmacher Institute , the number of illegal abortions in the 1950s and 1960s ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year . New anti-choice restrictions and prosecutions wo n't change the fact that women will sometimes choose to terminate their pregnancies . It simply restricts their options to do so . Ask yourself : In the case of Purvi Patel , even if she did intend to self-abort and used black market drugs to do so , and if she indeed delivered a live fetus , would n't we want to live in a society where she would bring that baby to the hospital for life-saving medical attention rather than be so afraid of prosecution that she threw it in a dumpster ? Purvi Patel is reportedly appealing her conviction . We should all appeal to logic and sanity and compassion and repeal these horrid anti-choice , anti-pregnancy laws .
Sally 2 : Indiana jury sentenced woman to 20 years , charged her with feticide and neglect of a dependent after she miscarried . She an absurd , unjust case makes pregnant women suffer , seek medical treatment and put their lives at even greater risk .