Depraved Hearts

A jury in the Christian state of Indiana has memorialised the late monarch of Saudi Arabia by convicting a woman of bodily heresy on two mutually contradictory counts. Purvi Patel has been found guilty of aborting a foetus and also of child neglect with regard to the aborted foetus. The first charge assumes that the foetus died in utero, while the charge assumes the simultaneous existence of a living and viable neonate; but such pettifogging objections evidently concerned neither the Christian state of Indiana nor the twelve good folks who reached the verdict. Mom kills baby - why, in such circumstances the very act of having a mind, let alone keeping the thing ticking over, is arguably a sin of omission.

The Christian state of Indiana has a prior record in such matters: four years ago a certain Bei Bei Shuai was prosecuted when a suicide attempt brought on an abortion; in Mississippi the same year, a teenager was charged with "depraved-heart murder" over a miscarriage, apparently as part of a minor skirmish in the War on Drugs. According to some, the legislation which provides the pretext for all this gibbering moral sanity was originally intended to outlaw violence against pregnant women; so thank heaven it's being put to proper use at last.