Bei Bei Shuai

Bei Bei Shuai (Chinese: 帅贝贝) is a Chinese immigrant to the United States who became the subject of international public attention from 2011 to 2013 when the authorities of the state of Indiana charged her with murder and attempted feticide after her failed suicide attempt allegedly resulted in the death of the child she was pregnant with. The British newspaper The Guardian described Shuai's case as well as those of other women who lose their unborn babies in cases of maternal drug addiction or a failed suicide attempt, as part of a "creeping criminalisation of pregnancy across America".

Shuai, a Shanghai native, immigrated to the U.S. in the early 2000s with her then-husband. In late 2010, after her marriage fell apart, she became pregnant with the child of another man. When he abandoned her, Shuai attempted to kill herself by taking rat poison. She survived, but her daughter Angel died on 3 January 2011 – 33 weeks after her conception, ten days after the poisoning and two days after her birth in an emergency caesarian section.

On 14 March 2011, Shuai was charged with the murder and attempted feticide of her child, and was jailed for 435 days. In May 2012, the Supreme Court of Indiana declined to dismiss the charges against her, but allowed her release on bail.

Shuai declined a plea deal that would have her plead guilty to the feticide charge (with a sentence of up to 20 years imprisonment) in return for the withdrawal of the murder charge. She faced a trial for murder with a possible sentence of 45 years to life imprisonment. In June, the prosecution filed a motion to admonish her lawyer, Linda Pence, for prejudicing the potential jury pool by conducting a public campaign for the support of her client. This caused alarm among defense lawyers nationwide, one of whom criticized the motion as a possible attempt at intimidation or to prevent Pence from raising money for her client; chief prosecutor Terry Curry denied this.

In 2013 Shuai pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of criminal recklessness and was released, having been sentenced to time served. Prosecutor Terry Curry said of the law under which she was initially charged for murder: "There was never any intention to monitor pregnancies."

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