Ohio jury clears woman of charges in home miscarriage case

• An Ohio grand jury has decided not to indict Brittany Watts, 34, on charges of abuse of a corpse in connection with a home miscarriage procedure.
• The case received national attention for its potential impact on access to reproductive health care and the legal status of unborn children.
• Watts had visited a Catholic hospital twice before her miscarriage, where doctors advised her to induce labor because the fetus would not survive and was at risk of harm.

An Ohio woman facing criminal charges over her handling of a home miscarriage will not be indicted, a grand jury decided Thursday.

The Trumbull County Prosecutor's Office has announced that a grand jury has decided against Warren, 34-year-old Brittany Watts, in an effort to resolve the case, which has attracted national attention for its impact on pregnant women as states across the U.S. rapidly enact new laws. He announced that he had refused to return the indictment on charges of abuse of a corpse. Manage access to reproductive health care.

The announcement came hours before her supporters planned a “We Stand With Brittany!” Gathering at the courthouse square in Warren.

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A city judge found probable cause to bind Watts' suit. That comes after city prosecutors announced that she miscarried, flushed the toilet and then left the house, leaving her 22-week-old fetus stuck inside a pipe. It was about. Her lawyer told the judge that Watts had no criminal history and that she was being “demonized every day because of what's going on.” Her autopsy determined that her fetus had died in utero and that there was “no recent trauma.”

Watts was visiting Mercy Health-St. Two miscarriages occurred in the days leading up to the miscarriage at Joseph Hospital, a Catholic facility in Warren, a largely working-class town about 90 miles southeast of Cleveland. Her case notes say her doctors told her to induce labor or put her at “significant risk” of death because she was carrying a non-viable fetus.

Her lawyer said delays and other complications meant she went home without treatment each time. After her miscarriage, she tried to go to her hair appointment, but her friends drove her to the hospital. Her nurse called 911 and reported that her previously pregnant patient had returned, reporting that there was “a baby in a bucket in the backyard.”

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The tip started a police investigation that ultimately led to charges against Watts.

Deputy Warren Attorney Louis Guarnieri told Municipal Court Judge Terry Iwanchuk that the question was not “when the child died or how the child died,” but “if the baby was put in the toilet and the toilet became clogged.” The fact that it was so large that it was left in the toilet.” Went to her bathroom and she continued with her day. ”

Her attorney, Tracy Timko, said in an interview that Ohio's corpse abuse law does not include what a “human corpse” means and “inhumanity” to a reasonable sense of family and community. He said that there was a lack of clear definition of what it meant.

“There are better scholars than me to determine the precise legal status of this fetus, corpse, cadaver, birth tissue, whatever it may be,” Ivanchak said in closing the case.