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.

  • Garbanzo@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Every woman in Ohio should call the coroner to report their monthly discharge, just in case

  • Drusas@kbin.social
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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.

  • DarkMessiah@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    More and more, we see direct evidence as to why Roe vs Wade was necessary.

    Because rabid birthers will do anything to punish women who don’t give birth.

  • TheMusicalFruit@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Ohio continuing its slow march onto the list of places I won’t travel to anymore. I’ve stopped voluntarily traveling (and spending money in) states I find politically abhorrent, and it feels great. Texas made the list last year, and Florida this year. Cancelled our FL vacation and decided to go to California instead.

    • evidences@lemmy.world
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      The real fucked up part of this is Ohioans just voted to codify abortion and reproductive rights into the state constitution. This is just some assholes trying to find ways around that amendment.

      • SuperDuper@lemmy.world
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        We also voted to legalize weed and Republicans are trying to kneecap it by removing the right to grow any plants at home, limiting the amount you can carry, and limiting the concentration of THC allowed in any product.

        Republicans hate democracy.

        • Riccosuave@lemmy.world
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          To be fair these are some of the same legal courses of action states like Washington have taken as well. Even legal cannabis is still a web of suppressive government bureaucracy, monopolistic tax structures, and punitive legal frameworks. We aren’t even close to what I would consider a just or equitable system, and every year it gets more heavily gentrified in favor of corporations who don’t give a single fuck about anybody who has suffered due to the war on drugs.

    • whofearsthenight@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Tangential, but I feel similarly and one of my bucket list items is a motorcycle trip across the country. At this point, do I just ride up to Canada, cross back over around New York? Or down to Tijuana, ride over until I hit ocean and swim around to Jersey? Serious question, should I pack mittens or water wings?

  • UziBobuzi@kbin.social
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    7 months ago

    Too bad medical science can’t invent a killer virus that takes out right wing fundamentalists with pinpoint accuracy.

        • Андрей Быдло@sh.itjust.works
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          Maybe HIV, AIDS and other veneric syndroms then? If they would indeed stop using contraceptives themselves like they preach for others to do, there’s a lot of awful illneses coming from that shortsighted pro-birth position. I won’t wish anyone to endure them, yet, I’m all for putting one’s genitals where one puts one’s ballot.

            • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.world
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              It’s not true, many of them are married and have kids.

              That’s just propaganda you bought into because it reinforces a preconceived notion of yours.

              • Isthisreddit@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                Yeah, exactly. Plenty of women lining up to fuck these assholes too for some strange reason (well I do know the reason, they figure these laws don’t apply to them, etc. Inb4 law that binds quote)

            • Андрей Быдло@sh.itjust.works
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              Just like Fox Mulder, I want to believe. I’ve seen news about that, or rather opinion pieces mostly, but they are so ideally in line with my thoughts I can’t break my sense of disbelief. I find that a comforting fiction.

              There’s a part of a population that have abusive, irrational behavior in their relationships as a part of their ‘culture’. Take eastern countries, take overly religious dens sparking across Europe. There women are kind of happy to serve the predestined role of full-body-covered sex and child-giver because they just don’t know better.

              I don’t usually chat with conservative people from the US, but I have a lot of women at home who can normalize everything, even explicit and regular domestic violence. Growing up in such a household can stun a person from knowing there’s a life better than that. And I’m sure even the worst pieces of shit can have their prefered genitals on a plate if they find the right person who has a history of such abuse.

              And having women protest their reproductive rights in the US kinda rings the bell that’s there’re many persons who’d be okay to lay with an idiot who’d want to strip them of all rights. It’s depressing, but pointing out the problem is a first step to solve it.

              So they are indeed endangered by veneric stuff.

    • AeroLemming@lemm.ee
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      Isn’t advocating for genocide a bit much?

      Edit: apparently not. That’s really disappointing.

      • UziBobuzi@kbin.social
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        7 months ago

        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.

        • AeroLemming@lemm.ee
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          So you think the punishment for being even remotely associated with the politicians doing that should carry the punishment of a slow and painful death? A lot of fundies don’t even fucking vote. I think we need protections against their craziness enshrined in law and anyone directly interfering with someone else’s autonomy should be arrested, but mass murder is fucking insane and you know it.

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          7 months ago

          they’re

          You mean the politicians and those who knowingly support them. Killing every fundie means killing a lot of religious people who don’t pay attention to politics and vote R because their parents vote R and their grandparents vote R. It also includes the people who don’t even fucking vote! You people are psychopaths.

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            I seem to have misplaced my violin as it’s so tiny.

            But to quote their ridiculous ancient book of nonsense, you reap what you sow.

          • ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world
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            Why did you try to list people who aren’t right wing fundamentalists?

            You’re making a strawman so you can be outraged.

            Go back to fox news grandpa, your need for rage has you fapping at strangers on lemmy.

    • lolcatnip
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      7 months ago

      People who think politics doesn’t affect them.

  • Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world
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    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.

    • Caradoc879@lemmy.world
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      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.

      • spider@lemmy.nz
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        Then it sounds like she had a mental health crisis because she miscarried in a fucking bathroom.

        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

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        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!

        • asteriskeverything@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          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

          • shalafi@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            React emotionally to the headline, read nothing further. Do you not know how to score points around here?!

            • Caradoc879@lemmy.world
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              Do you any other arguments other than calling other people emotional? No? Doesn’t seem like it lol.

        • Caradoc879@lemmy.world
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          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.

          • shalafi@lemmy.world
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            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?

            • ZzyzxRoad@sh.itjust.works
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              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.

            • Caradoc879@lemmy.world
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              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.

      • Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world
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        Fuck off, I’m not victim blaming at all. You clearly read what you wanted to instead of what I wrote.

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      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?

    • halferect@lemmy.world
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      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.

  • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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    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.