Ohio woman sues hospital and police after being arrested for miscarriage

Brittany Watts, an Ohio woman accused of abuse of a corpse after a miscarriage, has filed a federal lawsuit accusing some of the medical professionals who treated her of conspiring with a police officer to fabricate the criminal case against her.

The lawsuit, filed last week and names the professionals, the officer, the hospital where Watts was treated and the city of Warren, Ohio, as defendants, is the latest development in a case that first made national headlines in late 2023 took out when Watts was first charged. Although a grand jury ultimately declined to move forward with charges against Watts, the case raised fears about how the fall of Roe v Wade and the subsequent wave of abortion bans could endanger pregnant women and lead to police would treat miscarriages as crimes.

“This case is a perfect example of the broader implications of the overruling of Roe v Wade in the Dobbs case. Brittany was not seeking an abortion,” said Julia Rickert, one of Watts’ attorneys and a partner at the civil rights law firm Loevy and Loevy. “But the fallout from Dobbs’ decision changed the way her pregnancy, her choices and her medical crisis were viewed.”

On September 19, 2023, when Watts was about 21 weeks pregnant, she went to the hospital after she began experiencing pain and bleeding, the lawsuit said. Although she showed signs of a possible miscarriage, the lawsuit claims Watts “received no meaningful treatment or counseling.” She left the hospital after several hours and returned the next day. Although a doctor told her that her pregnancy was effectively over and that she was at risk of bleeding and sepsis, the lawsuit alleges that Watts again did not receive adequate treatment for several hours and left the hospital.

“Her uterus was essentially a death trap,” Rickert said.

In the early morning of September 22, 2023, Watts suffered a miscarriage in her toilet (which is common for miscarriages). According to the lawsuit, she delivered a “predeceased fetus weighing less than a pound,” which she did not see. Watts tried to flush the toilet and clean it, but then went back to the hospital as she continued to bleed.

According to the lawsuit, a nurse at the hospital contacted the hospital’s risk management department and called police. She allegedly told police that Watts had given birth at home, did not want the baby and did not know if the baby was still alive. Another nurse also wrote a medical note that falsely suggested Watts had seen and touched the fetus, the lawsuit alleged.

Reproductive justice groups have found that in cases where pregnant people are criminally charged for behavior related to their pregnancy, it is medical professionals who often tip off police. Between 2006 and 2022, one in three pregnancy-related criminal cases was filed by a medical professional. This is evident from an analysis by the organization Pregnancy Justice.

According to the lawsuit, a police officer arrived at the hospital and questioned Watts, along with one of the nurses, as she lay in her hospital bed. In police reports, the lawsuit alleged, the officer attempted “to present a false version of events to make it appear as if a crime had been committed: that Ms. Watts had delivered a live baby at home and allowed it to die.”

Watts was arrested in early October for abuse of a corpse — a charge that could have landed her behind bars for a year. However, in January 2024, the grand jury declined to indict Watts. Afterward, a local district attorney issued a statement saying his office had determined Watts had not broken the law.

Watts is now seeking extensive damages for both her initial hospital treatment and her subsequent criminalization. Her lawsuit alleges that the defendants variously violated Watts’ constitutional rights, as well as federal and state law, including a federal law that protects Patents’ access to stabilizing care in medical emergencies.

An attorney with Warren’s law department said the department would not be able to comment on pending litigation, while Warren’s police chief did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The officer named in the lawsuit declined to comment on any local news outlet in Ohio.

In a statement, the hospital where Watts sought treatment, Mercy West, also declined to comment on Watts’ lawsuit, citing patient privacy.

“We remain steadfast in our mission and our commitment to the patients and communities we serve with compassion and integrity,” the statement said.

The arrest and subsequent notoriety of the case were “overwhelming” for Watts, said Rickert, who added that Watts was “not someone who had ever been in the spotlight.” However, the ordeal led to Watts deciding to attend nursing school.

“She feels strongly that this is not how medical care should work,” Rickert said. “She wants to be able to offer people better care.”