Update. Since posting this, I’ve been informed that the purpose of the Rally is to argue for dismissal of the charges–not a plea bargain. Bei Bei takes the (eminently reasonable) position that she should not be branded a felon. As one of the commenters has pointed out, this is the sort of case that does a real disservice to the cause of both criminal justice and mental health, by conflating the two. Did this young woman make a very bad decision? Yes. Did that decision harm both her and her unborn child? Yes. But those facts , without more, do not suffice to prove a crime.
The case of Bei Bei–the young Asian woman who is being prosecuted for murdering her unborn baby–raises a number of questions.
The facts that are known are relatively simple: A young woman, pregnant and deserted by her lover, took rat poison in an apparent suicide attempt. She left a note for the faithless lover, saying she was killing herself and their child. She lived, but her baby died. The prosecutor charged her with murder, and refused to reconsider that charge even after an expert witness testified in a hearing that the still birth of the baby could not be proved to have been a result of the poison.
The case has become a high-profile cause for womens’ rights groups, who have (correctly, in my view) pointed out that a prosecution on these facts runs the risk of “criminalizing pregnancy,” and setting a dangerous precedent; it threatens to identify pregnant women as a separate and unequal class of citizen and to discourage pregnant women from seeking health care for depression or drug addiction. They have held rallies in an effort to pressure the prosecutor into dropping the case, or at least plea bargaining for a lesser charge.
This Saturday, at the City Market at two, there will be another rally.
There are a lot of unanswered questions about this case, which has become a very high-profile debate about both the exercise of prosecutorial discretion and the propriety of conducting a criminal defense in the media.
I have a lot of respect for Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry, but–unless he knows something about the facts of this case that he has not revealed–I can’t understand his decision to spend public resources pursuing this case. The purpose of the criminal justice system is public safety. (I know that a good portion of the electorate prefers a different, more punitive approach–make the bad guys suffer!–but the Indiana Constitution sets a more measured goal.) This young woman presents no threat to the public. She is highly unlikely to be a repeat offender. She’s a troubled individual who made a very bad choice; is punishing that bad choice really where we want to spend our officials’ time and the public’s money?
It is unfortunate that this case has been so highly publicized; perhaps if the media had paid less attention to it, the prosecution would have felt more comfortable resolving it short of trial. But here we are. So the national organizations that have come to Bei Bei’s defense have announced Saturday’s rally, presumably in hopes of pressuring the prosecutor to reconsider. I think it is more likely that the additional publicity will simply harden his resolve, but I recognize the need to draw public attention to the policy question that is at the heart of this case: how should the prosecutor exercise his discretion?
What makes us safe?
Your respect for Terry Curry is misplaced. What he did on the Omnisource case (he agreed to drop felony charges in exchange for money) was extremely improper. (Being kind here.) Curry has greatly expanded civil forfeiture far beyond what Brizzi ever did. (Brizzi pretty much confined it to drug related offenses.) People routinely have their property seized now in Marion County, even when criminal charges are never filed. Still Curry, like Brizzi, doesn’t follow the law on civil forfeiture and keeps 100% of the money for law enforcement instead of providing the balance above law enforcement for the schools. And as far as administration of the office goes, the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office continues to make poor decisions on screening and charging individuals.
Having said that, I totally agree with you about this case. I don’t know what purpose is served by pursuing this case. It certainly isn’t justice.
Should be “instead of providing the balance above law enforcement COSTS for the schools.”
A guilty verdict in a case like this could prevent future deaths and might prompt women to actually seek professional help instead of taking such extreme measures.
Bei Bei has been punished enough; if murder charges due to medical evidence were warranted, she would have been convicted long ago. She has served time in jail and been ridiculed in public; she was a desparate, depressed, frightened young woman who took drastic action. She has paid for her actions; let’s end this and move on to actual criminal cases. The Prosecutor’s Office energies and our tax dollars would be much better spent concentrating on stopping the Bisard cover-up and taking this killer to trial. How long are the victims to be subjected to watching his continued freedom and protection by the system? Let’s move on to the Three Stooges who, in the manner of Butch and Sundance blowing up an entire railroad care to steal money, blew up most of a neighborhood and killed two innocent people spending an evening in their home in Richmond Hills. Now “Moe” has more charges against him for attempting to set up the murder of a witness from a phone in the jail. These are actual criminal cases; Bei Bei is an unfortunate young woman who needs and deserves help, not further harassment by this legal system.
Iim really surprised that you think that Curry is so great. The man has no prosecuted one big case of any significance. He gave the Richmond Hill killers a pass,he gave this crazy Asian lady a pass, the Bisard case is a mess.The cops at IMPD are very upset that Curry continues to give the teen age gangsters passes because he fears not getting the black vote. Curry is worthless as a prosecutor. The fact is that she knew that she would be killing her child..that is murder. She killed another human being,thats pretty clear.I think at she should receive the death penalty. It was a premeditated effort on her part
I think some of the fury over this case is from those opposed to abortion and who believe life begins at conception, see comment #5 above. I think that confuses the issues for some people. Not being a resident of Marion County for over a decade, and not having practiced criminal law in longer than that, I have no professional opinion one way or another on Terry Curry. But from the facts of this particular case as learned in the media, it DOES seem to be prosecutorial overkill.
I have to agree with Greg regarding #5; the primary reason for continuing legal attacks on Bei Bei are probably based on anti-abortion reasoning.
Here’s a thought; Amendment 1 states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,…” This portion of the Amendment was written to prevent government from controlling religion; so how have we reached the point where religion and religious beliefs are now controlling too much of government?
To John #3. To the contrary, there are numerous amici on this case from medical, mental health and public health groups united in the opinion that criminalization of pregnant women discourages women from seeking prenatal care. Here is public health research: http://advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/main/publications/articles_and_reports/arrests_of_and_forced_interventions_on_pregnant_women_in_the_united_states_19732005_implications_for_womens_legal_status_and_public_health.php
This is, in no way, “criminalization of pregnant women”. This was not about “prenatal care”. This is about a person who took poison to kill herself and her child because she was upset her lover left her.
Easy for you to say when you will never be in this position. Suicide is a leading cause of death for pregnant women.
Yes, it is easy for me to say because it’s the truth. No one is arguing your straw man.
I don’t see what this so-called “bad choice” is supposed to be. It’s her life, so she can choose to end it if she wants to, for any reason. She doesn’t owe anybody (and certainly not “her unborn baby”, which is to say, an undeveloped parasitic fetus that is not conscious and not a person, and which has no rights whatsoever) otherwise. She didn’t “make a very bad decision”, she made a free choice about her own life and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
It’s a sad state of affairs when people stop regarding human life as valuable.
It’s also a “Sad state of affairs” when a nations legal system goes for felony convictions on issue’s that other nations (European) classify as mental illness.
Red George
If a fetus counts as “human life”, so does a malignant tumour. For the sake of consistency, please begin protesting the nearest cancer ward immediately.
So…killing a child while attempting suicide is a mental illness in some countries? I think it’s their legal system which has the mental illness.
Can you, backstab, explain how a fetus is not alive? Science tells us it most certainly IS alive (and is human).
The supporters seem creepy because they come across as pro-baby-killing, rather than pro-abortion:
http://www.facebook.com/events/466211466761802/?fref=ts
Jeez, tone down the smiles, people.
The case against this women who tried to commit suicide should be about mental health and not about murder.
Until you guys grow a uterus, we women will make our own choices.
You don’t own us.
Lincoln freed the slaves.
First of all, Lincoln didn’t free the slaves, the 13th amendment did, and was finally ratified six months after his death.
Second, it takes two to tango. If a man has to pay child support if the baby is born, then the man should have a say in whether or not the baby is born.
Third, this isn’t about mental illness. It is about killing a child (by her own admission). Anyone who commits any violent crime is mentally ill in my book, but that doesn’t get you off the hook for your deliberate actions.
The issue at hand seems to have gotten lost in the back-and-forth arguments regarding personal views on when life begins, anti-abortion views and even Curry’s prosecution record rather than the lack of medical proof of the cause of the death of this particular baby. The law requires irrifutable evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to convict anyone of murder in any circumstance. Prosecutors reportedly do NOT have this evidence and are, probably for their own personal beliefs or public pressure, refusing to close this case. Meanwhile a young woman is held up to pubic ridicule with people battling among themselves over their own personal feelings and she has a murder charge with the possibility of prison hanging over her head. Let us please return to, “Just the facts, maam.” and take this case to it’s conclusion in a court of law or between attorneys behind closed doors.
John: A fetus is certasinly “alive” in the same way that, say, a cancerous tumour is. It’s a bunch of living cells that metabolise, certainly. It’s also “human” in the same way that a cancerous tumour is – the cells contain human DNA, more or less, although the definition of species is notoriously slippery. I won’t dispute either of those facts. It’s not “a person”, though, just like a cancerous tumour isn’t, because it is not conscious or self-aware and cannot think and feel. It is simply a mass of cells that happens to possess features that make people like you have emotional responses that keep them from thinking their arguments through.
Oh, and, JoAnn Green: Sure, that is certainly true. But if the law is unjust, which it certainly is, it’s pointless to argue about whether it is being applied properly. It doesn’t matter if they are making the charge without evidence when the charge itself is ridiculous.
As one of the supporters referenced by Eugene #17, I value the lives of both the mother and her child after and before birth. I understand pregnancy biologically and experientially as a maternal-fetal unity and a one-way dependency that places a physiologic, emotional and social burden on a woman. Pregnancy incurs changes that exacerbate mental illness. It is also associated with an increase in abuse by a partner. It is associated with discrimination in the workplace and economic burden. The mother and baby thrive or fail to thrive as one; they are not antagonists in competition. The baby takes everything it needs. At the core, pregnancy confers vulnerability on a woman, and it would be terribly unhealthy and wrong if laws about pregnancy rendered a woman less than a person and with fewer rights than a person. The pregnant woman is a single complex being. The abortion debate distorts discussion about it.
Wow, backstab…What do you have against science to make you ignore it so much?
Sue, no one is talking about “laws about pregnancy” except the pro-abortion crowd. What IS applicable, is that a pregnant woman knowingly and purposely killed her child. The fact she lived through her suicide attempt does not change that.
No, John, she did not kill a child. That would be murder.
Note that Jo Ann’s point in #20 is crucial. The judge ruled that there was not a reliable link between the evidence of the pathology exam and the conclusions drawn by the forensic pathologies report. I attended that pre-trial hearing and profoundly agree that it was highly unprofessional. It was a rush to judgment. The pathologists conclusions are inadmissible in court.
John, I’m shocked to find that I have something against science, seeing as how science is my chosen career path and everything I said is scientifically accurate. Do you enjoy misusing words you don’t understand to lend a veneer of false credibility to your religious beliefs?
Also, Sue Ellen Braunlin: A “maternal-fetal unity”, “a single complex being”, “thrive or fail to thrive as one”? Those are some nice, florid words you’ve got there, but they seem a bit devoid of, you know, meaning. This sounds like a very postmodernist and needlessly elaborate way to say “a fetus is part of the pregnant woman carrying it”. Also, it’s not necessarily even true – they can definitely thrive and fail to thrive separately in a wide variety of scenarios, as I’m sure you’re perfectly aware. It seems rather laughable to accuse the abortion debate of distorting the discussion when you’ve just dropped that smokescreen of empty verbiage into it.
I don’t understand how people get a kick out of lying for their beliefs.
They are lies only to those who hold opposite beliefs.
Holding facts as beliefs is one thing, using sophistry as a belief is another. Science does not support backstabs beliefs, only sophistry does.
Sophistry: Ah; Clever, but flawed method of argumentation.
Not to be rude, John, but you seem to know as much about science as you do about grammar. But please, feel free to enlighten me about exactly what beliefs (your entirely hallucinated understanding of) science really supports. I’m sure it’ll be an exciting learning experience.
Science supports the fact that a fetus is a human (in this context, a fetus in a dog is obviously not human, it is a dog). Fetus is simply a term for a stage in life.
A bullfrog tadpole is no less rana catesbeiana than a fully developed bullfrog. It is simply at a different stage of development.
A tumor will never grow into a person. A fetus will because it is simply an early stage of a person’s development. Everyone alive today was a fetus at some point.
It amazes me, Dr Suess, the lengths that those with the same point of view on this case as you will go to make their case.
‘Criminalizing pregnant women?’
‘8 month old fetus is same as cancerous tumor?’
‘A fetus counts as life just as a malignant tumor?’
‘Until you guys grow a uterus, we will make our own choices?’
‘Easy for you to say because you will never be in this position?’
Ingesting rat poisoning is part of ‘prenatal care?’
And you, Dr Seuss:
‘Criminalizing pregnancy’
‘Pregnant women as a separate, but unequal class of citizen’
‘Discourage pregnant women from seeking health care for depression or drug addiction’
‘The purpose of the criminal justice system is public safety’
Huh?
So the murder one’s child is not punishable so long as the parent has no other children?
Other pregnant women who want to end their life because their lover leaves them will be discouraged from seeking health care if she is prosecuted? Huh?
Is there a duty of care that a woman with an 8 month fetus, whatever classification of life you give it, must provide?
If there is none, then is there no accommodation that others must afford a pregnant women? Is there no legal remedy for the voluntary or involuntary act of harming another’s unborn fetus?
Is a man, or for that a woman who cannot, or has not become pregnant
Unable to voice a valid opinion on this subject? Wouldn’t this attitude preclude women from voicing opinions on things that they cannot or have not done?
Is this really the best poster child for your cause(s)?
What is the difference between using this case, and gun control advocates not wanting to outlaw ANY weapon, or allow for ANY background checks, because it may lead to something else?
This is what the legal system is for.
If black advocates had their way, OJ would never have been allowed to be tried for the murder of 2 white people.
Instead, he was tried by a jury of his peers, evidence was presented, a judge (Ito) presided, and he was found not guilty. The system worked.
Bei Bei and the charges against her have again gotten lost in the personal back-and-forth airing of personal opinions. Speaking (personally) as one who has made a suicide attempt; this young woman was clinically depressed, desolate, desparate and not in control of thought processes or actions. In this condition, a person is outside of themselves watching their actions with little or often no control. As I did, she rallied in time to call someone to tell them what she had done. She was hospitalized and, yes, her suicide attempt could have caused early labor but, her slightly premature baby was born alive, died two days later and there reportedly is not evidence of rat poison in the baby. Had there been, this would have been part of the on-going public reporting of this case. Remember that she carries her own guilt, has served a year in jail, continues to be held up to public ridicule and every minute of her life is monitored. Again I will say; let’s take this case to it’s conclusion in a court of law or between attorneys behind closed doors.
JoAnn, you are contradicting yourself from post #4:
“She has paid for her actions; let’s end this and move on to actual criminal cases.”
“Bei Bei is an unfortunate young woman who needs and deserves help, not further harassment by this legal system.”
I like how the legal system is in the business of “harassing” people who attempt to kill others…
Post 37:
“Again I will say; let’s take this case to it’s conclusion in a court of law or between attorneys behind closed doors.”
So…you don’t want the legal system involved anymore…but you do. Care to clarify?
It is very simple, John. This has been draging on in the legal system for two years; only the legal system can end it. I am asked it to do so; Bei Bei can hardly order the Prosecutor’s Office to leave her alone. I have not contradicted myself; have my messages now been clarified?
If the victim were 2 months older, would you be asking the prosecutor to leave her alone?
Gertrude: Yes.
As for your earlier two posts, you are insane and should probably not try to get a job that requires high reading comprehension skills any time soon.
As to John:
“Science” (which I would be remiss if I failed to remind you is not a monolith) supports the fact that a human fetus is human. This is entirely different from being a human (in the sense of ‘a person’), and thus possessed of human rights, because that is a legal rather than a biological distinction. Science can say nothing about whether something is a human, or, less ambiguously, a person, because it is not concerned with these kind of subjective definitions. From a position of pure empiricism, eschewing any subjective beliefs, nobody is entitled to “human rights”, because after all human rights are nothing more than promises we make to one another and stem from nowhere in the physical world; and there can be no such thing as “murder” – death is nothing more than a bunch of cells ceasing to metabolise, and nobody can be at fault for “causing” death when it just proceeded naturally from every preceding state of the world.
Science won’t give you a morality on its own because, to use the traditional formulation, it is impossible to derive an “ought” from an “is”. This idea of “personhood” is purely subjective – basically, a fairy tale that people tell themselves about the world in order to process their surroundings.
Furthermore, there is, empirically, no such thing as “a human” in even the sense of “an individual of the species Homo sapiens“, because words like “individual” and “species” are poorly defined – you are nothing more than a loose agglomeration of cells, some minority of which (successfully giving the illusion of controlling the whole) contain DNA vaguely consistent with the DNA of similar cells in other cell-collections we’ve decided to call “humans”. This may be very nihilistic, but it is the only thing that “science” can support without bringing in subjective (and thus unscientific) premises.
What’s more, it’s entirely impossible to say both “a tumour will never grow into a person” and “a fetus will”. First of all, it should go without saying that most fetuses, in fact, do not. Who can say whether Bei Bei would have had a miscarriage had she done nothing?
Second, a tumour certainly possesses the potential to grow into an adult human (in the ‘individual of the species’ sense – let’s not muddy the waters by confusing the two), since every cell possesses a full complement of human DNA. Unless you have a crystal ball and can see the future, it is quite impossible to say whether any given tumour cell will grow into a person or not. You can only say, at best, that it is overwhelming unlikely – which suddenly sounds a lot more flexible than your absolute assertion. Basically, you seem to be doing an awful lot of prognostication when you can’t possibly know what “will” happen until it does. Isn’t it convenient how, whenever you look into your crystal ball, you happen to see exactly what you think will best support your arguments?
Third, everyone alive today was a zygote at some point too, and before that everyone alive today was a sperm cell and an egg cell. Is it murder to kill such a cell, on the grounds that you are preventing it from becoming a person? A more developed fetus has more in common with these cells than with an adult human, except for superficial appearance. Or is it that only things that look vaguely like how you think a human should look get human rights? What’s more, it’s also, more accurately, false that any person alive today “was” ever a fetus – the vast majority of the cells that made up the fetus are long since gone, having died and been replaced or having divided into new cells by now. The apparent continuity of “a person” is just an illusion rooted in the fact that we arbitrarily group the many elements making up a human into a conceptional unit without any real factual basis for the activity.
Finally, you’re neglecting the sticky question of just how you are going to go about defining “a human”. What does it mean for a fetus or a tumour to, as you’ve said, “grow into a person”? As we’ve established in preceding paragraphs, “a human” is just a cluster of cells, and never the same cells twice. And let’s not forget that those cells are themselves just groups of molecules in a constant state of flux, and molecules are made of atoms, and atoms are made of subatomic particles, and it’s likely that those, too, are made of some as yet undiscovered substrate. What properties do these cells (and all the layers beneath) have to have before you consider them “a person”? Needless to say, both a fetus and a tumour have or can have roughly similar properties, and any two individual humans (pretending, of course, that that phrase actually makes meaningful sense) likely have vastly different properties. Empiricism alone isn’t going to get you out of this mess, I assure you.
And so, once we’ve acknowledged that “personhood” is a subjective judgement on which “science” can’t help you out very much, it is certainly the case that you are entitled to your opinion on just what exactly it should apply to, and you don’t have to agree with me on subjective matters. That said, once you have taken a position you do have to bite the bullet and maintain it consistently – and I continue to hold that any belief that applies “person” to a fetus must inherently apply it to cancerous tumours, internal organs, and any other coherent groups of living, metabolising human cells. Appealing to hypothetical future scenarios and mistaken beliefs of the “natural” progression can’t change that.
Really, backstab? You know nothing about me, why make this personal? No one has addressed the only issue in the entire case: Does a woman who is 8 months pregnant have ANY duty, or responsibility to that which grows inside of her?
As to post #42, Scientists, other than yourself, are quite able to distinguish between a tumor and a future human being in the 8 th month of gestation.
One point of fact is that Bei Bei Shuai was 7 months and 1 week pregnant when she took the rat poison. Gestational age is measured from the first day of the last menstrual period, a point that has been lost on most reporters.
Secondly, the poison has NOT been linked to the death and I don’t think can be.
Any pregnant woman does many things during a pregnancy. Some are thought to be healthy and some are believed not to be. Rarely can an outcome be related to a prenatal event. Things believed to be causative in general have been found so by large epidemiological studies. And lo and behold, brodifacoum has not been found to be harmful to fetuses.
I don’t know why Curry is investing in the murder aspect of this case. I assume he charged her with murder to get her to plea down to attempted feticide.
He doesn’t need to prove causation for attempted feticide. That is a matter of expanding the meaning of a statute.
Gertrude: I “made this personal” because your posts were asinine and I want you to give me back the seconds of my life I wasted reading your tortured irrational meandering.
My answer to your question is: no. There is no duty to a fetus. Ever. Under any circumstances. You have no more duty to a hypothetical fetus you might contain than to any other unthinking, inert internal organ in your body. The fact that it kind of looks like a real person if you squint does not make a difference.
Of course it is possible to distinguish subjectively between a fetus and a tumour. The average fetus and the average tumour look very different. But that is not what I said – I said that they *share the same objective properties* (besides the absolutely superficial, which is exactly what we use to distinguish them) and thus, if you say that one is a person, the other must be as well. Finally, this bullshit about “future human beings” is sickeningly wrong and an obvious (and fatally flawed) appeal to emotion. As I already hashed out, you have no way of knowing whether or not it will become a human being; literally any human cell has the “potential” to become one; and a fetus is no more “meant” or “destined” to become a human being than the individual sperm and egg cells that produced it, so that criterion would be forced to accept all of those.
People who cannot debate issues in a civil fashion, and make their points without ad hominem attacks will be blocked from participating on this blog. Robust argument and disagreement are fine; nastiness is not.
Thank you, Professor.
Dr. Braunlin, the 3 weeks difference in gestational period aside, I still don’t know whether you feel a pregnant woman has an obligation to that which grows inside her, that she fully intends to become a human being.
“Rarely can an outcome be related to a prenatal event.”
Rarely is not never. I would debate ‘rarely’ but then we are into diet, alcohol, smoke, drugs, dangerous activity, late term flying, and a host of things that physicians say that pregnant women shouldn’t do.
Again, I ask, does a pregnant woman have any responsibility to her future child?
It is a general question, to which many fighting the cause feel that the answer is “No.”
I am not yet asking where that duty begins or ends, but merely is there a duty.
We can certainly differ as to whether one who ingests rat poisoning caused, intended to cause, or acted with indifference to the future child that she intended to bring into this world.
I didn’t think so.
You ladies (Dr Kennedy and Dr Braunlin) are really no different than those you oppose. I mean no disrespect when I say this, and it is not a personal attack, it is fully within the boundries of this discussion. You don’t give an inch.
You both know that there is a difference between a pregnant taking rat poisoning and an aspirin or having a glass of wine. Reasonable people know this. Reasonable people also know that you don’t have to rally behind someone who eats rat poisoning to keep society from criminalizing pregnancy.
You attract, recruit, rally, organize, facilitate ( I won’t quibble, whatever you want to call it) these people who honestly believe that there is absolutely no way to differentiate between a tumor and a fetus, say nothing to correct them, help mobilize them to promote your causes.
You are no different than those on the right that equate the morning after pill with murder. Somewhere in the vast middle is what we should strive for, and neither of you are helping to get there.
Dr. Kennedy. The purpose of the criminal justice system is public safety. Really. That’s it? A man kills his ex- wife solely for the purpose of eliminating alimony or child support payments, or to gain custody of the kids should not be prosecuted?
What are Officer Brisard’s risks to public safety now that he has stopped drinking?
Dr. Braunlin. Rarely can an outcome be related to a prenatal event. Really? Rarely?
So, all of your fellow health care professionals who advise pregnant women who actually wish to have a healthy baby to refrain from such things coffee, alcohol, second-hand smoke, horseback riding, fumes of any kind, and on and on are doing so because the risk is rare?
If that is true what about coke, crack, paint, heroine? Rare? Are these the separate but unequal citizens you speak of, Dr. Kennedy because they shouldn’t do what non-pregnant people can do? Is our babysitter separate but unequal because she is charged with the responsibility of carring for our children while her friends can come and go as they please?
Is rat poisoning on the rarer than rare list because studies have proven not to be harmful to fetuses?
What did she think was going to happen to that baby when she took the rat poisoning?
Gertrude b; my first question to you has to be, how do you know Bisard has stopped drinking?
Being the mother of 5 children, only 1 problem pregnancy for which doctors could not explain a cause, I know and remember the physical toll pregnancy places on women. Again; we have moved away from the young woman at the center of all this controversy, her general condition at the time she took rat poison is of utmost importance. She did not instantaniously become depressed, desolate and and desperate enough to do this to herself; this had to be the result of on-going, frightening conditions for who knows how long in her life. The number of premature births which cannot be explained could possibly also play a part in Bei Bei’s situation. She asked for and received medical help quickly; we have not been told what treatment she received to counteract effects of the poison that could also have – maybe – brought on the premature birth. We, the public, do not have all the facts in this case but what we have been told makes the charges against her questionable. The time-lag in taking this case to court is further punishment on Bei Bei and is one reason court calendars are overloaded. IF – IF – Curry has proof of his charges against her; take it to court or work with her attorney but – do something to finalize this case. It will NEVER be finalized in Bei Bei’s life or in her mind; the memories of what she has done and what she has endured for three years or more will forever be with her.
JoAnn- I know that in the same way you know that Ms. Shuai won’t get pregnant, and get dumped again. I don’t.
As to the 2nd paragraph, it is not what she did to herself that is at issue, it is what she may or may not have done to the baby.
Again, why does no one in this forum address what her responsibility was?
Let the legal system work. Let the prosecutor make the case, the defendant plead her case, and a jury decide.
Let the prosecutor make the case that she got bad news and, wanted to get rid of her problem, and violated a duty she had to her unborn child, or whatever he feels happened.
Let her make the case that this was a slow building depression, living for so long in frightening conditions, that evolved into a mental illness, she wanted to end her life, chose a method that Dr. Braunlin said would not harm a fetus, or whatever her defense is and go with it. With the number of unexplained premature births, and the studies Dr. Braunlin knows of that prove rat poisoning has no effect on a fetus, she should have an easy case.
Let her attorney make the case that the treatment for rat poisoning -maybe- caused the premature death. Blame the treatment! Why did she need the treatment?
Rush to judgement, or long drawn out process? I’ve seen both.
There are so many angles that you people have used here it is like a geometry class. Let her pick one and run with it.
Now the criminal court docket is too crowded for this case.
Let the justice system work.