Bulletin: Women's rights to liberty, autonomy, non-discrimination, bodily integrity and privacy under attack; : Purvi Patel: "Congress Blog"; Commentator Leila Hessini refers to the Patel case as she asks who has the right to liberty and privacy in the U.S.? "In the U.S. women have been prosecuted for allegedly harming fetuses, embryos and even fertilized eggs. They have been forced to undergo caesarian sections or give birth shackled to their hospitable beds. In Indiana, Purvi Patel, who maintains that she experienced a miscarriage, was given a 20-year sentence for purportedly provoking her own abortion."

"Women’s human rights are enshrined in globally recognized agreements — including the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) — that require governments to respect, protect and fulfill women’s rights to liberty, autonomy, non-discrimination, bodily integrity and privacy. Increasingly in the United States, however, pregnancy or alleged pregnancies are being used as reasons to unlawfully discriminate against women and deprive them of their most basic rights and liberties. The fact that fetal rights are trumping those of women must be placed in the context of increased restrictions on abortion, an area where the U.S. is leading the charge and yet totally out of line with global practices. In the U.S. women have been have been prosecuted for allegedly harming fetuses, embryos and even fertilized eggs. They have been forced to undergo caesarian sections or give birth shackled to their hospitable beds. In Indiana, Purvi Patel, who maintains that she experienced a miscarriage, was given a 20-year sentence for purportedly provoking her own abortion. The prosecution of women for using medications to end an unwanted pregnancy has been on the increase in numerous states including Arkansas, Idaho, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Georgia. The risk is not only to individual women but to others who assist them. Jennifer Whalen, a mother of three who helped her own daughter have a safe abortion, was thrown into jail as a result. And a nurse in Arkansas was recently charged with performing an unlicensed abortion after she allegedly provided a woman with a drug to induce abortion. (Leila Hessini is director of Community Access at Ipas),  an international reproductive health organization in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, board chair of the Global Fund for Women and a Public Voices Fellow at the OpEd Project.)
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/civil-rights/245757-who-has-the-right-to-liberty-and-privacy-in-the-us