A grand jury in Ohio won’t indict a Black woman for miscarrying in her home bathroom last year. According to NBC News, jurors in Trumbull County decided against indicting 34-year-old Brittany Watts for abuse of a corpse, a fifth-degree felony, Thursday afternoon (January 11).
Watts miscarried into a toilet at her home in Warren, which is 60 miles south of Cleveland, on September 22. Prosecutors charged her under a statute of Ohio law that punishes the treatment of a human corpse in a “way that the person knows would outrage reasonable family sensibilities” or “community sensibilities.”
During the preliminary hearing on the case, Warren Assistant Prosecutor Lewis Guarnieri claimed Watts simply left the fetus clogged in the toilet following the miscarriage.
“The issue isn’t how the child died or when the child died. It’s the fact that the baby was put into a toilet large enough to clog up the toilet, left in that toilet, and she went on her day,” he said last month.
Traci Timko, Watts’ attorney, argued there was no law in Ohio requiring a woman who miscarries to bury or cremate the remains.
“This miscarriage took place in her home, on the toilet. Ms. Watts learned days before this that a miscarriage was inevitable and that the fetus could not survive outside the womb due to gestational age,” Timko said in a statement obtained by reporters. “The medical examiner testified at a preliminary hearing that this fetus died in utero and showed no signs of injury.”
She continued, “Rather than focusing on healing physically and emotionally, she was arrested and charged with a felony and is fighting for her freedom and reputation.”
Watts’ case represented a flashpoint in a post-Roe America. After the Supreme Court struck down federal protections for abortion rights in June 2022, several states have enacted laws restricting and even criminalizing people seeking abortions and reproductive care. Some legislations have banned exceptions for rape and life-threatening emergencies.
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