Ohio woman will not be charged with abuse of corpse after miscarriage, grand jury decides
The case against Brittany Watts, the Ohio woman facing charges abuse of a corpse after she suffered a miscarriage will not move forward, a grand jury decided Thursday.
The Trumbull County, Ohio, the grand jury declined to indict Watts, who was reportedly reported to police after a miscarriage in September, by returning a “no-bill” in her case. Watts The case had sparked nationwide shock and outrage, as reproductive health and justice advocates raised the issue as an example of how pregnant people can easily face criminal consequences — especially in the wake of the overturning of Roe v Wade.
“This decision does not diminish the harm Brittany has suffered as a result of this case. Brittany should have been able to focus on taking care of herself after the loss of her pregnancy,” Yveka Pierra, senior trial attorney at If/When/How, a reproductive justice advocacy group, said in a statement Thursday. “Cases like Brittany show us that, depending on your identity, the state treats some losses as tragedies and other losses as crimes.”
Watt reportedly miscarried in a toilet in September, when she was about 22 weeks pregnant. She tried to remove the mass clogging the toilet and then went to the hospital, where a nurse reportedly alerted police.
Watts had previously shown up at the hospital with signs that her waters had broken prematurely. according to CNN. This condition can make continuing a pregnancy impossible and, if left untreated, can cause pregnant people to spiral into fatal sepsis – which has happened in other states after Roe.
The charge of “abuse of a corpse” in Ohio depends on whether someone handled a corpse in a manner that would “violate the reasonable sensibilities of the community.” If Watts had been convicted of the fifth-degree felony, she could have spent a year behind bars.
Before Thursday’s decision, Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights had sent an open letter to the US Trumbull District Attorney Dennis Watkins, representing Watts.
“By attempting to sue her, you are clearly implying that anyone who miscarries at any time during pregnancy in our state must have the fetal tissue retrieved, whether at home, at work, at school, in a restaurant or be in another public place, and must keep it. until the tissue can be properly disposed of, even though Ohio law does not define what a proper disposal method would be or require this non-existent method to be used,” the group wrote. “We have no doubt that women faced with the threat of prison and heavy fines will hide the fact that they have had a miscarriage and refuse to seek treatment.”