Indiana woman convicted of using abortion drugs to terminate her pregnancy, and of child neglect for putting still-born baby in a dumpster after the birth

According to local CBS affiliate WSBT, Patel has said that the baby was already dead when it was born, that she tried to revive it, and that she didn’t call 911 because she was in shock.

Court documents show that Patel then went to the St Joseph hospital in Mishawaka, Indiana, bleeding from her vagina. She at first denied having given birth, but told medical staff later that she had delivered a still-born child at home, and had placed the body in a dumpster.
...
The verdict is mutually contradictory. Child neglect would require the baby to have been alive and viable, while the feticide charge would require the fetus to have died in utero. Despite this, Patel was convicted on both charges.

Neither charge carries mandatory prison time, but the maximum sentence for child neglect is 50 years – with an additional maximum of 20 years for feticide. Sentencing is set for 6 March.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/04/purvi-patel-found-guilty-feticide-unborn-childs-death

The whole pursuit of Purvi Patel was both a mockery of Constitutional liberties and a chilling look into the future if the anti-choice crowd gets control of even more of the law-enforcement apparatus, both out in the states and in the national government. The police interrogated Patel sans Miranda after she'd just gotten out of emergency surgery. They then got a warrant and searched her cell phone and found texts in which Patel expressed a strong ambivalence toward her pregnancy, and a desire to end it, and these were used against her at trial. So, yes, ladies, if you're pregnant, you better glow, or there could be legal consequences down the road. This is a very difficult case, and it involves a woman who was frightened, and who acted out of panic. However, it does illustrate the fact that, given enough time and support, prosecutors at the state level will twist the law until it runs over itself in regards to curbing a woman's right to choose. (It also is a pretty good indicator that Governor Mike Pence should not be president, but that's another story.) This is a helpful case to keep in mind the next time one of your moderate friends suggest that it will be no great loss if Roe v. Wade is overturned, because that will just send the issue "back to the states." Yeah, good luck with that.