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.
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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.
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.
Sounds like a woman CHOOSING WHAT TO DO WITH HER OWN BODY. Fucking shame on you for victim blaming. If she wanted to have that baby and chose to try despite medical suggestions, THAT IS HER CHOICE!
Then it sounds like she had a mental health crisis because she miscarried in a fucking bathroom.
Think of the emotional state of that woman and tell yourself charging her with a crime is the right thing to do. If you can’t pretend to know what she was going through you certainly have no fucking right to judge her actions.
And the prosecutors are holding her to a standard they likely couldn’t follow themselves under these circumstances.
Also, she’s black, which I’m sure has nothing to do with this. /s
She was perfectly in the clear to get an abortion. She ignored medical advice twice. So yeah, there’s more to this than the headline.
OP didn’t say charging her with a crime was right. OP said nothing like that. OP even went out of his way (2nd paragraph for those with low reading comprehension) to state that he wasn’t making any sort of judgement. Merely that this didn’t seem the result of abortion restrictions and it’s an odd case with some unanswered questions.
Honestly though, it’s all OP’s fault for reading the article and not reacting emotionally. Do better OP!
Actually it has everything to do with abortion restrictions because these are the predicted consequences of overturning roe v wade. Suddenly everything is put into question
Thank you, I’ll be sure not to read the article in the future. I can do better!
React emotionally to the headline, read nothing further. Do you not know how to score points around here?!
Do you any other arguments other than calling other people emotional? No? Doesn’t seem like it lol.
You’re also fucking scum for victimizing a woman for choosing what to do with her own body, then. Abortions are trauma. Having a baby is trauma. The entire sutuation is trauma, and it boils down to Her body, her choice. Fuck off.
She ignored medical advice. Walked away. TWICE. Were you OK with anti-vaxxers doing that because it was “their body their choice”?
This woman was clearly traumatized by the whole thing, and acted foolishly because of said trauma. Nothing to condemn her for. And no one has.
Again, this situation doesn’t seem to have anything to do with abortion laws. But you insist OP and I are condemning her to score your point.
At some point do you say, “Sorry. I was emotional on this thing and misunderstood.”? Or you want to double-down and argue some more when we both fucking agree?
The last article I read about this said that doctors were taking days to figure out how to handle this legally because of abortion restrictions, even though they knew it was nonviable. I have personally AmA’d out of a hospital and gone to a different one for a different health situation because I didn’t trust the doctors, and it turned out to have been the exact right decision.
Women are not taken seriously by doctors, and black women are really not taken seriously, nor respected as human beings, by doctors in the US. There’s a million variables to this situation that none of us know, and we shouldn’t act like we know. But sure , let’s just judge this woman for how she reacted to a fucking horror movie situation that should have never occurred in the first place, especially in a “free” country with all the necessary healthcare technology readily available.
So why did this happen to her when she was at home, by herself? Because doctors were afraid of the legal repercussions of performing a medically necessary procedure. That’s all it comes down to. Not that hard.
At this point, anyone blaming this woman or any other woman in a similar situation as if they brought something like this on themselves, is just a misogynist looking for an outlet for their hatred of women. We all know it, but someone’s got to say it.
I think we do still disagree if you’re still insisting she should have been forced tk have an abortion. It was her choice. The fuck don’t you people understand about that?
And comparing a woman’s choice to have an abortion vs getting a vaccine is an incredibly flawed argument. Babies aren’t contagious. And no, I’d never hold someone down and force a vaccine. You seem to think someone should have forced this woman to terminate the baby.
You are still vilifying her for making her own personal choice. Shame on you. Doesn’t matter if it was against medical advice or not.
Fuck off, I’m not victim blaming at all. You clearly read what you wanted to instead of what I wrote.
Seems like her mental state wasn’t the best throughout her whole ordeal.
Regardless, the important thing here is that they are charging her with mutilation of a corpse when there’s no guidelines in OH for how to handle fetal remains.
How is anyone supposed to know what to do in that situation, even if they are more clearheaded?