Woman who attempted suicide while pregnant is accused of murder

[CHIMO]

Source: guardian.co.uk

A woman accused of murdering her four-day-old baby girl by trying to kill herself with rat poison while pregnant has become a cause célèbre for US women's groups and civil liberties organisations.

Bei Bei Shuai, 34, a restaurant owner who moved to the US from China 10 years ago, was pregnant and planning to marry her boyfriend until she learned late last year that he was already married and he would be abandoning her.

A few days later, on 23 December, she went to a hardware store, bought rat poison pellets, went back to her flat in Indianapolis and swallowed some. But she did not die immediately and was persuaded by friends to go to hospital.

She was given treatment to counteract the poison and gave birth on New Year's Eve, but her daughter, Angel, suffered seizures and died after four days.



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/15/woman-attempted-suicide-pregnant-accused

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Did someone say "Theocracy"?

[Tx4obama]

2. Also an article on a DU thread yesterday on the link below

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x888606

[Chef Eric]

3. Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, so we can accuse them of murder. nt

[Downwinder]

4. Seems to me that the missing male should also be accused.

[WatsonT]

6. That's a horrific precedent to set

imagine if you were to blame for any action carried out by any person you interacted with.

Yeah he's a scumbag, but he didn't poison her.

[WatsonT]

5. It says she took the poison late December

Then gave birth in March.

That's three months.

Unless the kid was tremendously premature it was in the end of it's 2nd trimester and beginning of the third when she took her poison.

That's pretty late for it to be considered the same as a regular abortion.

I don't see this as a threat to abortion rights, as it is easy enough to tell the difference between the two scenarios.

[LisaL]

7. No, she gave birth on New Year's Eve.

[WatsonT]

8. My mistake

I read that too quickly. She was charged in March, that must be where I got confused.

So that seems to be even worse. If she gave birth within a few weeks then that is even less excusable.

I am 100% pro-choice, but even I have issues with an "abortion" a few weeks prior to giving birth.

[LisaL]

9. Appears that fetus was close to full term unless she was born

prematurely.