Grand Jury Declines to Indict Ohio Woman Who Miscarried at Home
Grand Jury Declines to Indict Ohio Woman Who Miscarried at Home
In a case that had drawn international attention, Brittany Watts had been charged with abuse of a corpse after miscarrying and disposing of the nonviable fetus.
One idiot judge. The prosecutor's office had no interest in pursuing this, but the fucking cops and one idiot judge is what caused this to move forward.
The hospital notified the Warren City Police Department about the miscarriage and “the need to locate the fetus,” according to a coroner’s report.
I don't really understand what the hospital was hot about. She had been there for premature rupture of membranes and they didn't want to do surgical intervention. Why they felt the need to call the cops because they wanted the fetus, even if she left AMA, is beyond me. If she wanted to go home because they wouldn't offer a d and c and wanted her to pass it naturally, then let her go home.
Edit: sounds like her nursing staff called the cops after she went AMA, which is incredibly fucking annoying to me, as a nurse. It's within a patients rights to decline our care, particularly when it's ineffectual. You warn her that she could hemmorage and let her go home.
I honestly hope she sues that fucking hospital.
Don’t forget the one idiot Christian nurse who simultaneously held this woman’s hand in the hospital and then reported her to the police because it’s against her beliefs.
No hate like Christian love
I wonder if the hospital violated HIPPA by giving the police her private medical information?
Maybe. There's loopholes for risks to safety and those loopholes depend on discretion which was seriously lacking in this case. I think it would be unlikely to be successful against a judge, but I also don't think it would be dismissed before trial and I wouldn't want to risk a jury trial if I was a hospital.
If I was an Ohioan I'd be rallying against the DA who brought the charges at all. These laws are inhumane.
DA wanted to drop it.
In a lengthy statement outlining the case and prosecution timeline, Dennis Watkins, the Trumbull County prosecutor, said that his office had found that Ms. Watts had not violated the law as claimed in the initial compliant and that it disagreed with a lower court’s application of the law after interviewing witnesses “and researching and applying the law.”
Last month, Mr. Watkins said his office was “duty bound” to follow Ohio law and move forward with a grand jury proceeding after Judge Terry Ivanchak of Municipal Court found probable cause for the grand jury review to proceed.
Last month, Mr. Watkins said his office was “duty bound” to follow Ohio law and move forward with a grand jury proceeding after Judge Terry Ivanchak of Municipal Court found probable cause for the grand jury review to proceed.
At some point, the more important duty becomes to refuse to cooperate with even "lawful" christofascist tyranny. The "just following orders" excuse didn't work for Nazi concentration camp guards, and I'm not so sure it works for these judicial officials either!
wtf
That poor woman. God damn.
If I were a woman I'd never have sex again with a man or I'd move the fuck out and claim refugee status in Canada.. God damn.
If I were a woman I'd never have sex again with a man
Many of these states don’t have an exception for rape. So the only choice women get is whether or not they live in the state.
And not everyone can afford to just pack up and move somewhere else.
No need to move to Canada. There are plenty of states with much looser laws. My own, Oregon, has made some adjustments to better accommodate women traveling from conservative states to the east like Idaho.
Ms. Watts visited the hospital several times; on her first visit, she had to wait for eight hours so the hospital’s ethics board could determine the course of treatment, Ms. Timko said. Ms. Watts eventually passed the tissue at home and returned to the hospital.
Looks like conservatives finally got those "death panels" they were so worked up about when Obama tried to give everyone health insurance.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A grand jury in Ohio on Thursday declined to indict a woman who had miscarried a nonviable fetus at home on a felony charge of abuse of a corpse, ending a case that had drawn international scrutiny from lawyers and reproductive health advocates who had argued the charge was baseless and could endanger other patients.
The woman, Brittany Watts, 34, of Warren, Ohio, was arrested in October after passing a fetus in her bathroom and trying to flush the remains down the toilet.
Ms. Watts was admitted to the hospital with vaginal bleeding on Sept. 19 when she was just over 21 weeks pregnant, right before the 22-week mark that would have made it a viable pregnancy under Ohio law.
The hospital notified the Warren City Police Department about the miscarriage and “the need to locate the fetus,” according to a coroner’s report.
The autopsy report found that the fetus had died in utero — before delivery — because of complications of premature rupturing of the membranes.
The case came at a time when access to reproductive health care was being debated across the country after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
The original article contains 615 words, the summary contains 196 words. Saved 68%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
They're obviously using her as an example to others. These Christians are lucky Hell doesn't exist.
USA! USA!