Posted on 12/31/2023 5:02:16 PM PST by Morgana
An Ohio woman faces felony charges related to the abuse of a corpse after she suffered a miscarriage at home and attempted to flush the fetus down the toilet.
Brittany Watts, 33, miscarried in the bathroom of her Warren home during the third week of September. It was her first pregnancy.
Earlier that week, she was admitted twice to Mercy Health St. Joseph Warren Hospital when she experienced agonizing cramps and bleeding.
However, she left both times after waiting hours to see a doctor.
‘I was distraught, heartbroken, empty - literally and figuratively,’ Watts told WCMH-TV. She did not tell anyone in her family about the pregnancy. Following the miscarriage, which she suffered at just over 22 weeks pregnant, Watts flushed the toilet.
When the toilet overflowed, she used a bucket to clean up. As she did not want anyone to know about the pregnancy, Watts then went to the salon for a hair appointment.
But the hairdresser was concerned and called her mother. Watts was taken to the hospital, where a nurse phoned 911.
According to transcripts, the nurse told a dispatcher that Watts was sent to the hospital earlier that week with bleeding and left ‘against medical advice.’
‘She came back in on Wednesday still bleeding and said, “Maybe I do need to be seen.” So we readmitted her and we were talking her through everything and she disappeared,’ the nurse continued.
She said Watts admitted to placing the fetus in a bucket and putting it outside her home, as well as saying that she did not want the baby.
However, Warren police found the fetus still lodged in the toilet. Watts was later arrested and charged with gross abuse of a corpse, a fifth-degree felony.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
How big is baby at 22 weeks? At 22 weeks, baby is the size of a coconut. Average baby size at 22 weeks is about 10.9 inches long (at 22 weeks pregnant, baby's size is measured from the crown of the head to the heel of the foot) and 14 ounces.
Prosecutors seem to know that a fetus is a person...
A series of very bad decisions is what she made, one right after the other, starting with getting pregnant and no follow up plan.
AT that point, the dominoes began to fall.
This is not a woman used to making decisions or even being expected to make them.
She does herself no favors by bringing the whole bloody story up for public perusal.
I read when Britany went to the hairdresser, and that hairdresser later called Britany’s mother. At first I thought ‘What a busybody!’, but no, that hairdresser probably saw a woman under great stress who probably still wore bloodstains all over her clothes and skin. That hairdresser most likely saved her life.
The law is an ass.
The loss of a child is more than enough punishment. For the lawyers to use the event for power and money games is immoral.
This is one of those awful situations in which we are obliged by our faith and decency to show compassion.
I wonder what the precedents are in terms of prosecution and conviction when it came to other women in a similar circumstance.
I can’t believe there haven’t been women who showed up at an ER a few hours after miscarrying at a similar point in pregnancy after having tried to handle it on their own and avoiding the ER but having too much bleeding or something that made them go or someone take them.
And then they cannot produce the fetus because it got flushed away.
Except in the case of some of those women the miscarriage process might not have started a day or so earlier and been documented by the hospital and shown to just be a pregnancy having gone wrong the way some pregnancies just do.
In the case of these other women, who is to say they didn’t do something to cause the miscarriage?
And if they weren’t prosecuted for abuse of a corpse, why should this woman be?
Abuse of a corpse? Give me a break — this is what prosecutorial discretion is for. It’s the type of stunt that loses us elections.
There was no abortion, no fetus to be saved. An emotionally troubled woman had a miscarriage, after trying twice to get medical assistance. She panicked, but the fetus had already died of natural causes.
If Republicans want to lose elections for no good reason, this is how to do it.
Seriously. Dems read a story like this and have orgasms.
Indeed, it’s purely political, and I saw it too many times as a NICU RN. All they have to do is wait until their perfect case emerges to make whoever, or whatever, look bad. It’s heinous and will backfire on them.
I agree.
FTA:
“’The state law contains stipulations for the misdemeanor offense of abuse of a corpse and the felony offense of gross abuse of a corpse.
To qualify for the felony charge, a person must ‘treat a human corpse in a way that would outrage reasonable community sensibilities.’”
If I am on the grand jury, I can’t indict for a felony. Perhaps for a misdemeanor. But I’d hope she would get no jail time, a minimal fine, and some sort of stint at community service someplace that might do her some good, such as at a crisis pregnancy center or something. There’s probably better ideas along that line.
It sounds as if she might have been one of those women who ignored her pregnancy and tried to tell herself it wasn’t so and not have seen a doctor until she started having problems. It may or or may not have made a difference in avoiding the miscarriage.
If things had gone the other way and she went on ignoring the pregnancy and pretending it didn’t exist and give birth at 9 mos. to a healthy baby, she may be one of those people to do so alone and throw the baby in a dumpster.
But she also may have put in a basket where she knew someone would soon find it or have decided upon seeing the baby she wanted it and called out for help.
YEAH???? I just got of the phone with my mom who lives in the state of New Mexico. She was talking about how its now legal in New Mexico to abort a baby all the way up to and even after birth AND the law says that the baby can actually SURVIVE FOR UP TO THIRTY DAYS and still be considered a legal abortion!!!! This is beyond creepy...this is evil manifest.
100%
Why would a nurse call 911 in a hospital?
If she had had the baby aborted and cut up for body parts she would have been okay.
Weird and sick.
Not a word about Jesus
in the story or in the comments.
She probably is mandated to report that no fetus was found with the woman when she came in because the fetus would have been sent to autopsy to determine what happened to it and to rule out the mother having done something to kill a live fetus. It’s probably just SOP.
Even if an upper class woman goes to the ER for bleeding and has had a history of prenatal care and she miscarried right then and there in the ER because of a pregnancy tragedy that just sometimes happens they’d do basic tests on the fetus. They’d be legally bound to rule out heavy drinking or drugs versus the miscarriage resulting from some freak congenital thing that just sometimes happens. They’d also want to see if there is some sort of condition the woman needs to know about to help make a future pregnancy not end the same way.
I’ve had two miscarriages: one at 8 weeks (heart beat detected, positive pregnancy test) only to lose it three days later and another one at 13/14 weeks.
The second one was a lot worse.
I was literally filling diapers with blood for nearly a week (my child was gone but my body kept trying to “save” it). The baby was expelled after labor pains began and was the size of a shelled peanut. It was devastating.
I passed out on the bathroom floor. My toddler found me that way, covered in blood. Neighbors drove me to the hospital, looked after my two children, and called my husband.
I was under the care of an OB/GYN. Those little ones were wanted and loved. I ate healthy, lived clean, and did not do anything to jeopardize them.
Sometimes, babies die in the womb. It’s an ugly, painful reality.
I would hate to think after having gone through all that the law would now compound this tragedy by branding me a criminal.
I am very happy to chime in with you. But of course there’s not the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell this will not be highly politicized to Brittany’s disadvantage. With pointless punishment. AND I AM PRO-LIFE! The interesting thing is that the strident pro-aborts will not go near this case, and certainly won’t come to her defense. Too real-life and messy for them. OH and felony abuse of a corpse really sounds like something Jimmy Savile-ish, rather than flushing down the toilet.
What are women genetically programmed to do with a miscarriage? Do they throw it away, flush it, call the police, call the doctor, call 911, take it to a hospital, or bury it in the backyard?
And does this change based on size or number of weeks?
Is there an official chart and diagram women get?
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