Reproductive rights group urges Ohio prosecutor to drop criminal charge against woman who miscarried

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The physicians’ group behind Ohio’s newly passed reproductive rights amendment is urging a prosecutor to drop criminal charges against a woman who miscarried in the restroom at her home.

Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, a nonpartisan coalition of 4,000 doctors and others, argues in a letter to Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins that the abuse-of-corpse charge against Brittany Watts, 33, conflicts “with the spirit and letter” of Issue 1.

The measure, which was approved in November with 57% of the vote, guarantees an individual’s “right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions.” It made Ohio the seventh-straight state to vote to protect reproductive rights since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the ruling that long legalized abortion nationally.

Watts’ case has touched off a national firestorm over the treatment of pregnant women, particularly those like Watts who are Black, in post-Roe America. Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump elevated Watts’ plight in a post to X, formerly Twitter, and supporters have donated more than $135,000 through GoFundMe for her legal defense, medical bills and trauma counseling.

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Watts miscarried at home Sept. 22, days after a doctor told her that her fetus had a heartbeat but was nonviable. She twice visited Mercy Health-St. Joseph’s Hospital in Warren and twice left before receiving care. Her attorney said she was left waiting for lengthy periods and felt anxious and judged.

A nurse called police when Watts returned that Friday, no longer pregnant and bleeding. “She says her baby’s in her backyard in a bucket,” the woman told a dispatcher. Police arrived at her home, where they found the toilet clogged and the 22-week-old fetus wedged in the pipes.

A city prosecutor told a municipal judge that Watts was wrong when she tried unsuccessfully to plunge the toilet, scooped the overflow into a bucket, set it outside by the trash and callously “went on (with) her day.”

Her attorney, Traci Timko, argued Watts is being “demonized for something that goes on every day.”

An autopsy found “no recent injuries” to the fetus, which had died in utero.

The statute under which Watts is charged prohibits treating “a human corpse” in a way that would “outrage” reasonable family or community sensibilities. A violation is a fifth-degree felony punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine.

Dr. Lauren Beene, executive director of the physicians’ group, wrote Watkins: “It was wrong for the nurse who was caring for Ms. Watts and hospital administrators to call the police, wrong for the police to invade Ms. Watts’ home while she was fighting for her life in the hospital, wrong for Warren assistant prosecutor Lewis Guarnieri to move that she be bound over to the Trumbull County grand jury, and wrong for Judge (Terry) Ivanchak to grant his motion. Prosecutor Watkins has the opportunity to be the first law enforcement official to do the right thing since this incident began.”

She called it “an opportunity he should seize immediately.”

Beene said Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights fears the case will deter other women from seeking miscarriage care. The organization also shared its letter, dated Dec. 15, with the Warren mayor, law director and city council members, in hopes of building support for dropping charges against Watts.

Messages seeking comment were left with Watkins, the mayor and the law director. The prosecutor told the Tribune Chronicle of Warren that his office does not comment on pending grand jury cases.