An Ohio woman who had sought treatment at a hospital before suffering a miscarriage and passing her nonviable fetus in her bathroom now faces a criminal charge, her attorney told CNN.
Brittany Watts, 33, of Warren, has been charged with felony abuse of a corpse, Trumbull County court records show.
“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,” her attorney, Traci Timko, told CNN in an email.
…
Though a coroner’s office report said the fetus was not viable and had died in the womb, Watts’ case highlights the extent to which prosecutors can charge a woman whose pregnancy has ended – whether by abortion or miscarriage.
The hospital staff notified the Warren Police Department, which responded to Watts’ home, the coroner’s office report says.
CNN reached out to the hospital for comment about why staff notified police. Maureen Richmond, vice president of integrated communications at Mercy Health – a Catholic health care system that includes St. Joseph Warren Hospital – sent the following statement to CNN:
“The safety and security of every patient who comes to us for care is our highest priority. Out of respect for patient privacy, we will not discuss individual specifics of care.
Except when it comes to snitching on people.
Who the hell would want to get pregnant in the US at this point?
People who think politics doesn’t affect them.
The laaaaaaaaand of the freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Too bad medical science can’t invent a killer virus that takes out right wing fundamentalists with pinpoint accuracy.
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The day they stop trying to shove their own personal religious choices down everyone else’s throat and criminalizing what should be a woman’s own bodily autonomy is the day I stop feeling this way.
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A huge percentage of pregnancies end in miscarriage, very often before the woman even knows she was pregnant. This is the same. She should have to take special care of the mass her body rejected just because it was in there a little longer? What’s the cutoff for having to report that you had a miscarriage, then? Every period? Every time you have a period that’s a week or two late, because that is reasonably likely to have been a miscarriage?
This was a non-viable fetus. It was never going to be a person. It’s not a corpse.
The problem is, once we’ve decided the vials of humanity are out of reach, there’s no telling where the divine will go. It’s like trying to reach into endless oceans only to find being swept into darkness, the water only grows.
Vials? What?
Are you okay?
The vials, the ones that hold all things. Eventually the pain will end but before, we need action.
Please take your meds I’m begging you
Why does anyone mediate when no one drives the effort? The essence of all things is when harmony comes from inside. All else is caves.
The nurse that called 911 on her should be deeply ashamed of themselves
Damn this poor woman needs support not legal bullshit.
She’s black so the point is it’s supposed to be ok.
I wish I was joking.
Any cop that would arrest this woman, and any DA that would charge her deserve to be beaten to death.
Agreed. I’d join the curb stomping brigade.
metaphorically, this is for legal purposes a sarcastic expression of anger
for practical purposes, no it isn’t
I knew my comment would get removed by some coward. Yours probably will too.
I can still see it… maybe an instance thing?
Yeah idk. It got deleted by two different lemmyworld mods lol
So there are some weird parts to this one. First of all, she could legally get an abortion, and when she went to the doctor initially for PROM and oligohydramnios (water broke at 21 weeks, and there was little/no amniotic fluid), the doctor recommended an abortion. She left AMA. Then came back, again an abortion was recommended, and she was told the fetus wasn’t viable, and again she left AMA. She ended up delivering in a toilet, then collected blood / clots and tissue in a bucket that she left by the garage outside, but left the fetus in the toilet.
I’m not going to judge what a woman does after a miscarriage, and I’m not going to pretend to know what it feels like to be told your fetus isn’t viable and an abortion would be best. But this sounds like a much more complex case than the title makes it out to be, in fact it seems like it has next to nothing to do with abortion restrictions, which I’m a huge proponent against, as every woman should have autonomy over her body.
And then she went back to get a abortion and the hospital waxed intellectually on the ethics of abortion for hours and hours before she left and miscarried in her toilet.
Why are you making shit up?
It’s in the article
