Law students to join Bei Bei Shuai rally

Students from Indiana University Maurer School of Law will take part in a rally this weekend to call for an end to the prosecution on murder and attempted feticide charges of Bei Bei Shuai. Shuai consumed rat poison while pregnant, and her newborn daughter died shortly after birth.

Representatives from the Maurer chapter of Law Students for Reproductive Freedom will join an assembly of clergy, lawyers, health care providers, researchers, professors and others who will gather at 2 p.m. Saturday at City Market in downtown Indianapolis.

The event is sponsored by the Indiana Religious Coalition in Support of Reproductive Justice and will feature speaker Lynn Paltrow, founder of National Advocates for Pregnant Women.

Shuai’s case drew international attention after she was charged with murder and attempted feticide in January 2011. She was charged after her newborn daughter, Angel, died days after her delivery by emergency cesarean section at Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis. Shuai had told friends that she consumed rat poison days earlier in an attempted suicide after the baby’s father left her. Shuai’s friends persuaded her to seek medical attention.

A judge ruled in January that a medical examiner’s testimony that the poison caused the baby’s death was inadmissible. Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry said at the time that the ruling could lead to dismissal of the murder charge, but not the attempted feticide charge.

Spokeswoman Peg McLeish said Friday that Curry had no further comment on the status of the case. Shuai’s trial is set for Sept. 3.

Shuai’s supporters say Curry should drop the prosecution because they believe her medical confidentiality was violated and that she never should have been charged. Supporters claim the prosecution treats pregnant women as a separate class of people with unequal rights.

Read earlier IL coverage of the Shuai case here.