Brittany Watts, 33, was charged after police searched her toilet following her miscarriage in September.

Brittany Watts, 33, was charged after police searched her toilet following her miscarriage in September.

A Black woman in Ohio has been charged with a felony for abuse of a corpse after she miscarried into her toilet, according to a criminal complaint, and reproductive rights experts are warning that it could set a dangerous precedent if she is convicted.

The attorney for Brittany Watts and a campaign organized on her behalf called the charges against her unjust, saying they feared the case could open the door to similar prosecutions and lawsuits over miscarriages nationwide.

Just hours after Watts, 33, was admitted to a hospital for a life-threatening hemorrhage after she miscarried in her bathroom Sep. 22, police removed her toilet from her home and searched it for fetal remains, according to a GoFundMe set up to fund her legal expenses and home repairs.

“Ms. Watts suffered a tragic and dangerous miscarriage that jeopardized her own life. Rather than focusing on healing physically and emotionally, she was arrested and charged with a felony and is fighting for her freedom and reputation,” her attorney, Traci Timko, said in a statement.

  • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    11 months ago

    You keep repeating this on multiple related posts, without sources, when every single account I have read says she was in and out of the hospital miscarrying before she finally did at home, and then went back to the hospital afterward, where she was inpatient for days. She left the hospital because she wasn’t getting any help; they were all stuck on the new law while her body was unable to expel the fetus quickly. They did NOT offer her any abortion or assistance with moving the miscarriage along at all, which is why she kept going home AMA.

    December 15
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/12/15/ohio-woman-miscarriage-abuse-of-corpse-grand-jury/
    Archive link: https://archive.is/2rSiE

    December 16
    https://apnews.com/article/ohio-miscarriage-prosecution-brittany-watts-b8090abfb5994b8a23457b80cf3f27ce

    December 19
    https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/19/us/brittany-watts-miscarriage-criminal-charge/index.html

    From WaPo, linked above:

    Brittany Watts was still hooked to an IV, sick for almost a week from a potentially fatal miscarriage, when a detective from the Warren Police Department in Ohio stepped into her hospital room. He assured her that she wasn’t in any trouble.

    For more than an hour, Detective Nick Carney interviewed Watts, 33, about the details of that morning and the whereabouts of the nearly 22-week-old fetus that was declared nonviable two days earlier. As Watts described miscarrying in her bathroom, a nurse at Mercy Health — St. Joseph Warren Hospital rubbed her shoulders and told her everything would be okay, Watts told The Washington Post in a series of text messages. Two weeks later, Carney arrested Watts on charges of felony abuse of a corpse for how she handled the remains from her pregnancy. If indicted and found guilty, she faces up to a year in prison along with a fine of up to $2,500, her lawyer said.

    To describe Watts’s experience, The Washington Post reviewed police reports, call recordings and more than 600 pages of medical records, interviewed her lawyer, and spoke to Watts via text message. (emphasis mine)

    Again, you don’t need to make anything up. If you find yourself having to lie, maybe your point is not as worthy as you think it is.