The pregnant, Black Ohio woman who suffered a miscarriage at home last September — and then was threatened with felony in December — won’t face charges after all, thanks to a grand jury in January.
Brittany Watts seemed destined to be charged with abuse of a corpse, a fifth-degree felony, after miscarrying into a toilet at her home in Warren, Ohio, a city about 63 miles southeast of Cleveland. Prosecutors charged her under a statute of Ohio law that punishes the treatment of a human corpse in a “way that the person knows would outrage reasonable family sensibilities” or “community sensibilities.”
However, a Trumbull County grand jury decided against indicting Watts. If the jury had decided to indict, she would have faced a $2,500 fine and up to a year in prison.
Many took Watts’ treatment as a not-so-thinly veiled attack on women’s reproductive rights in the post-Roe v. Wade era, which began when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down federal protections for abortion rights in June 2022.
Between then and Watts’ case, some two dozen states enacted laws restricting and even criminalizing people seeking abortions and reproductive care — some even in cases where the pregnancy is a result of rape or when the mother’s life might be endangered. Studies have shown that Black pregnant women are disproportionately criminalized — and Watts’ case seemed to be just another exhibit in a long list.
Rather than engage in the abortion debate, however, prosecutors tried to be careful not to attack how the pregnancy ended but what happened with the body.
“The issue isn’t how the child died or when the child died,” Warren Assistant Prosecutor Lewis Guarnieri said. “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.”
Advocates for women’s reproductive rights weren’t buying it, dismissing it as a low-key attempt to enforce a chilling effect on anybody who might be considering abortion.
The legal fiasco started when Watts was 21 weeks pregnant and visited Mercy Health-St. Joseph Warren Hospital three times for medical treatment. Because abortions in Ohio are legal up to 22 weeks, when she showed up the final time no longer pregnant, hospital officials notified the police. The police went to Watts’ house and found the fetus’ remains clogging up the toilet.
A GoFundMe page called “Justice for Brittany Watts” was created. It raised nearly $250,000.
Another group, Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, got involved.
“As citizens, we are outraged that the criminal justice system is being used to punish Ms. Watts who, like thousands of women each year, spontaneously miscarried a non-viable fetus into a toilet and then flushed,” the group said in an open letter to the Trumbull County prosecutor last month. “As physicians, we are deeply concerned that your actions will deter women who miscarry from obtaining the medical attention they need and deserve.”
Watts’ lawyer thanked the grand jury for doing the right thing.
“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. “While the last three months have been agonizing, we are incredibly grateful and relieved that justice was handed down by the grand jury.”
Watts can breathe easier now. She thanked her supporters, those who prayed, sent emails, called or donated to the GoFundMe page.
“I want to thank my community … Warren, Ohio,” Watts said. “I was born here. I was raised here. I graduated high school here, and I’m going to continue to stay here because I have to continue to fight.”
