The doctors’ group behind Ohio’s recently passed reproductive rights amendment is urging a prosecutor to drop criminal charges against a woman who suffered a miscarriage in the bathroom of her residence.
Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, a nonpartisan coalition of 4,000 doctors and other practitioners, says in a letter to Trumbull County District Attorney Dennis Watkins that the molestation charge against Brittany Watts, 33, violates the “spirit and letter” of the amendment.
The measure, approved in November by referendum in Ohio with 57% of the vote, guarantees the “right of the individual to make and carry out his or her own reproductive decisions.” This made Ohio the seventh consecutive state to vote to protect reproductive rights since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 to overturn the landmark “Roe v. Wade” which long legalized abortion nationwide.
Ms. Watts’ case sparked a national storm over the treatment of pregnant women, especially those like her who are black, in the “post-Roe” United States. Civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump addressed Ms. Watts’ plight in a post on the X platform, and her supporters donated more than $135,000 for her legal defense, medical bills and post-traumatic care.
Non-viable fetus
Ms Watts suffered a miscarriage at home on September 22, days after a doctor told her her fetus had a heartbeat but was not viable. She twice visited Mercy Health-St. Joseph’s in Warren and left twice before receiving treatment. Her lawyer said she had to wait long hours and felt anxious and judged.
When Ms Watts returned that Friday, no longer pregnant and no longer bleeding, a nurse called the police, who went to her house. Police found the toilet clogged and the 22-week-old fetus stuck in the pipes.
A city attorney told a municipal judge that Ms. Watts was wrong when she tried unsuccessfully to flush the fetus down the toilet, put the excess in a bucket, dumped it outside by the trash can and “went on with his day” as if nothing had happened.
Her lawyer, Traci Timko, said Watts was being “demonized for something that happens every day.”
The autopsy revealed “no recent injuries” to the fetus, which had died in utero.
The law under which Ms. Watts is charged prohibits treating “a human corpse” in a manner that would “offend” reasonable family or community sensitivities. The offense is a “fifth degree” felony punishable by up to one year in prison and a $2,500 fine.
Dr. Lauren Beene, director of the doctors’ association, wrote to prosecutor Watkins: “It was a mistake on the part of the nurse who cared for Ms. Watts and the hospital administrators to call the police, and it was a mistake for the police to invade her home while she was fighting for her life in the hospital.”
Dr. Beene said Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights fears the case could deter other women from seeking care for miscarriage.
Prosecutor Watkins told the Tribune Chronicle from Warren that his office does not comment on pending grand jury cases.