by A grand jury in Ohio is considering indicting a woman who aborted a non-viable fetus at home and has been charged with abuse of a corpse in what experts say is an extremely rare interpretation of a state law.
The woman, Brittany Watts, 34, of Warren, Ohio, was arrested in October after expelling a fetus in her bathroom and attempting to flush the remains down the toilet. The case has been before a Trumbull County grand jury since November. If she is convicted, Watts could face up to a year in prison. She pleaded not guilty.
The grand jury was expected to report Wednesday, but Guy M. Vogrin, spokesman for the Trumbull County prosecutor, said the case had continued to the next session in a couple of weeks. The reason for the postponement was unclear since grand jury proceedings are secret.
Although records show that Ms. Watts miscarried, a conclusion the state has not disputed, the case has come under scrutiny by lawyers and reproductive health advocates who say prosecuting her is baseless and may deter other women from seeking abortion. they fail to obtain medical attention. need.
The impeachment came a month before Ohio voters enshrined the right to abortion in the state Constitution up to the point of fetal viability, 22 weeks in the state, as well as the right to contraception, fertility treatment and care in case of spontaneous abortion.
The measure, which came into force in early December, was part of a winning streak for abortion rights groups after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. Ms. Watts is being “demonized for something that happens every day,” said her lawyer, Traci Timko. before Judge Terry Ivanchak of Warren Municipal Court last month.
But Judge Ivanchak, who has since retired, found probable cause to send the charge to a grand jury for consideration.
Watts and Timko did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
What happened?
According to a report from the Trumbull County Coroner’s Office, Ms. Watts was 21 weeks and five days pregnant when she was admitted to St. Joseph Warren Hospital in Youngstown, Ohio, with vaginal bleeding on September 19. Doctors determined that her water broke. prematurely and her cervix dilated; Ms. Watts also had a significantly elevated white blood cell count.
Doctors were able to detect cardiac activity, but “recommended that she induce and deliver the fetus despite her nonviable status,” according to the report, because she was at significant risk of maternal death, sepsis, or “complete placental abruption with bleeding.” catastrophic”.
On her initial visit to the hospital, Watts left after waiting eight hours for a hospital ethics panel to determine whether she should induce her pregnancy without legal ramifications because she was at the peak of Ohio’s viability timeline, 22 weeks. Ms. Timko told The Associated Press. The hospital declined to comment.
Mrs. Watts returned home to “process the information she was told,” according to the coroner’s report. She returned the next day with the same symptoms and left a second time without treatment.
On Sept. 22, Watts carried the fetus alone at home in her bathroom and returned to the hospital, where she received a dilation and curettage, also called a D and C, to remove the placenta, according to the report. The hospital notified the Warren Police Department of the miscarriage and “the need to locate the fetus.”
Police found the fetus stuck in her bathroom toilet, the report said, noting that Ms. Watts had told police she disposed of what she believed were the remains in a bucket in her backyard. Police then removed the entire bathroom from the house and took it to a morgue, “where they cut it open” to recover the fetus, the report said.
The autopsy report found that the fetus had died in utero (before delivery) due to complications from premature rupture of the membranes.
Police charged Ms. Watts on Oct. 5 with felony abuse of a corpse according to a law adopted by the Ohio Legislature in 1996. The case is being prosecuted by the Warren City Attorney’s Office.
What is the law in Ohio?
The law in question prohibits the treatment of “a human corpse in a manner that the person knows would offend” either “reasonable family sensitivities,” resulting in a misdemeanor, or “community sensitivities,” resulting in a felony charge.
“From a legal perspective, there is no definition of ‘corpse,’” Timko, Watts’ attorney, said in the interview with The Associated Press. “Can you be a corpse if you never breathed?”
Ohio law determines that fetal viability begins at 22 weeks. Ms. Watts arrived at the hospital at 21 weeks and 5 days.
Joshua Dressler, a former criminal law professor at Ohio State University, said the statute used by prosecutors was “rarely applied” and typically involves the abuse or mutilation of a human being. But under common law, a fetus does not become a human being until birth, he said, and since the fetus died in the womb, “to me, this would not constitute being a human corpse.”
“This is a completely different way of understanding the meaning of the term corpse,” he said. “I think this is a very, very serious issue with the prosecution for those reasons.”
Jessie Hill, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University who has worked on abortion rights cases, said Watt’s case delves into the debate over fetal personhood.
“By using something like the abuse of a corpse as a hook to prosecute this case, it sort of assumes the conclusion that this fetus was a person or the equivalent of a born person,” he said. “That’s definitely a concerning aspect of the case.”
Ms. Hill also noted that “the pregnancy outcomes of people of color are much more likely to be questioned and result in criminalization.”
If Watts had had an abortion at the hospital, Hill said, the fetus would not have been treated like a corpse.
Why is it being processed?
Last month, Dennis Watkins, Trumbull County’s Democratic prosecutor, said his office had a “duty” to follow Ohio law and move forward with a grand jury proceeding.
But Michael Benza, a criminal law professor at Case Western, said the decision was up to the prosecutor. He said “there are a lot of problems” with the prosecutor’s case, including the definition of a human corpse. But the prosecution’s biggest challenge may lie in the vagueness of the language.
“If my students wrote this statute,” he said, “they would fail.”
First, prosecutors must explain why the remains constitute a human corpse. They will also have to persuade the jury that Ms Watts’ actions caused “outrage” in the public.
The prosecutor’s interpretation of the statute exceeds his intentions, Benza said, but public pressure may have led the prosecutor to file charges.
Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights sent a letter to the prosecutor, Mr. Watkins, “protesting the unfair prosecution” of Ms. Watts, and urged him to dismiss “the unwarranted charge.” More than 4,000 health care workers and community leaders signed the letter.
Ms. Hill, a reproductive health lawyer, said Ms. Watts’ case may be a sign of things to come in Ohio in the wake of the constitutional amendment to protect reproductive health care, and she said there could be more efforts to criminalize miscarriages and other pregnancies. results.
