Ohio woman who miscarried in home toilet is not criminally liable, grand jury says
COLUMBUS, Ohio — An Ohio woman who was facing a potential criminal charge for her handling of a home miscarriage will not be charged, a grand jury decided Thursday.
The Trumbull County prosecutor’s office said grand jurors declined to return an indictment for abuse of a corpse against Brittany Watts, 34, of Warren, resolving a case that had sparked national attention for its implications for pregnant women as states across the country hash out new laws governing reproductive healthcare access following the overturning of Roe vs. Wade in 2022.
The announcement came hours before a “We Stand With Brittany!” rally of Watts’ supporters was scheduled in Courthouse Square in working-class Warren, about 60 miles southeast of Cleveland.
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Watts’ lawyer said an outpouring of emails, letters, calls, donations and prayers from the public helped her client endure the prospect of being charged with a felony punishable by up to a year in prison.
“No matter how shocking or disturbing it may sound when presented in a public forum, it is simply the devastating reality of miscarriage,” attorney Traci Timko said in a statement. “While the last three months have been agonizing, we are incredibly grateful and relieved that justice was handed down by the grand jury today.”
A municipal judge had previously found probable cause to in the case against Watts. That was after city prosecutors said she had miscarried, flushed and scooped out her toilet, then left her house as the 22-week-old fetus remained lodged in its pipes.
Her lawyer told the judge that Watts had no criminal record and was being “demonized for something that goes on every day.”
An autopsy determined the fetus had died in utero and found “no recent injuries.”
Watts had visited Mercy Health-St. Joseph’s Hospital, a Roman Catholic facility in Warren, twice in the days leading up to her miscarriage, after her doctor told her she was carrying a nonviable fetus and needed to have her labor induced or face “significant risk” of death, according to records of her case.
Due to delays and other complications, her attorney said, Watts left both times without being treated. After she miscarried she tried to go to a hair appointment, but friends convinced her to go to the hospital.
There, a nurse called 911 to report a previously pregnant patient had returned, saying, “the baby’s in her backyard in a bucket.”
That call launched a police investigation that led to the eventual charge against Watts.
Assistant Prosecutor Lewis Guarnieri told Municipal Judge Terry Ivanchak that the issue wasn’t “how the child died” or “when the child died,” but “the fact the baby was put into a toilet, was large enough to clog up the toilet, left in the toilet, and [Watts] went on [with] her day.”
Timko said in an interview that Ohio’s abuse-of-corpse statute lacks clear definitions, including what is meant by “human corpse” and what constitutes “outrage” to reasonable family and community sensibilities.
In Ivanchak‘s earlier ruling that the case could proceed, he said, “There are better scholars than I am to determine the exact legal status of this fetus, corpse, body, birthing tissue, whatever it is.”
The Black reproductive rights group In Our Own Voice expressed relief Thursday at the case’s outcome.
“What happened to Brittany Watts is a grave example of how Black women and their bodies face legal threats simply for existing,” Regina Davis Moss, the group’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. “Her story is one that is becoming alarmingly common: in states with abortion restrictions, Black women, girls, and gender-expansive people are being surveilled, arrested, prosecuted and punished for pregnancy loss.”
Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, a key backer of the state’s successful fall vote for an amendment to protect access to reproductive healthcare, had lobbied Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins to drop the charge against Watts, but Watkins said that was not within his power.
On Thursday, the physicians’ group commended the grand jury and called for a halt to the “dangerous trend” of criminalizing reproductive outcomes.
“It not only undermines women’s rights but also threatens public health by instilling fear and hesitation in women seeking necessary medical care during their most vulnerable moments,” Dr. Marcela Azevedo, the group’s president, said in a statement.
Watts hopes her story can be an “impetus to change,” her lawyer said.
“Through education and legislation,” Timko said, “we can make sure no other woman must set her grief and trauma on a back burner to muster the strength to fight for her freedom.”
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