An Ohio prosecutor says he cannot drop the charges against Brittany Watts and is bound by duty to bring her miscarriage case to a grand jury, according to the Associated Press.
“The county prosecutors are duty bound to follow Ohio law,” Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins said. “This office, as always, will present every case with fairness. Our responsibility carries with it specific obligations to see that the accused is accorded justice and his or her presumption of innocence and that guilt is decided upon the basis of sufficient evidence.”
Watts, 33, has been charged with abuse of a corpse, a fifth-degree felony punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine, after she miscarried a non-viable fetus at her home in September. She has pleaded not guilty.
Watts was 21 weeks and 5 days pregnant when she went to the hospital on September 19 with signs indicating that her water had broken prematurely. Watts’ doctor told her that her fetus had a heartbeat but was non-viable.
Watts told her doctor she could “better process what was happening to her at home” and left the hospital against medical advice.
Watts returned the next day, September 20, after she made the decision to have the non-viable fetus induced. But staffers at the hospital spent hours debating how to proceed, according to The Washington Post.
Watts eventually left the hospital again.
She ultimately ended up miscarrying the fetus at home, into the toilet on September 22. She returned to the hospital “for vaginal bleeding with retained placenta after a home delivery,” according to the coroner’s report obtained by CNN. That’s when a nurse reported her to the police.
Watts told officers her fetus was in a bucket in the backyard. Police arrived at her home, where they found the toilet clogged and the fetus inside.
An autopsy revealed the fetus died inside the womb due to severely low amniotic fluid from the premature rupture of membranes.
Lewis Guarnieri a prosecutor said at a preliminary hearing last month that it was Watts’ actions after the miscarriage that is the problem.
“The issue isn’t how the child died, 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,” Guarnieri said.
Traci Timko, Watts’ attorney told CNN that her client “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.”
“I believe that this charge stems from the lack of knowledge and/or insight that men have regarding the realities of miscarriage and women’s health in general,” Timko added. “I don’t believe the fetal personhood issue was something they considered or found relevant. I believe this case demonstrates the need for education and showcases the sweep that the fetal personhood debate has even outside the context of abortion.”
Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, a coalition to protect abortion access in Ohio, wrote to Watkins, urging him to drop the charge against Watts.
“By seeking to indict her, you are clearly implying that anyone who miscarries at any point in pregnancy in our state must retrieve the fetal tissue whether they are at home, at work, at school, at a restaurant or other public place and preserve it until the tissue can be disposed of properly even though Ohio law does not define what a proper disposal method would be nor require that this non-existent method be used,” the group wrote, according to The Guardian. “We have no doubt that women facing the threat of jail time and hefty fines will conceal the fact that they have miscarried and refuse to seek treatment.”
