After Brittany Watts aborted a non-living fetus in her home, she was charged with a felony
This article contains details that may be disturbing to some readers.
An Ohio woman who suffered a miscarriage at home has been charged with felony abuse of a corpse.
Brittany Watts, 33, of Warren, Ohio, miscarried at 22 weeks while using the bathroom at her home. Forensic pathologist Dr. George Sterbenz testified at the Nov. 2 trial that there were no injuries to the fetus, which died in utero, according to a WKBN report.
“This fetus was not viable,” Sterbenz testified. “And he won’t be able to live because she had premature rupture of membranes. Her water broke early.”
Premature rupture of the membranes — sometimes abbreviated as PROM — is when “the amniotic sac ruptures before 37 weeks of pregnancy,” says the Cleveland Clinic. “The fetus can survive if your water breaks prematurely. It depends on factors such as gestational age and how much amniotic fluid is left.”
But as Sternenz testified, “The fetus was too young to be born.”
After miscarrying, Watts tried to flush her toilet, then told police she left the contents of the toilet outside the trash, according to the coroner’s office, according to CNN — leading to a charge of “misuse of a corpse.”
“The problem is not how the child died, it’s when the child died — it’s the fact that the baby was put in a toilet bowl, big enough to clog the toilet, left in that bowl and it moved on. [with] her day,” Warren’s assistant prosecutor Lewis Guarnieri said in court, according to the WKBN tape.
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Records show Watts visited the hospital three times in the four days before the miscarriage with vaginal bleeding. After the miscarriage, she returned to the hospital, where the nurse was advised by risk management to contact the police, according to medical records obtained The Washington Post.
“I had a mother who had a home birth and she came in without the baby and said the baby was in her backyard in a bucket,” the nurse said, according to the report.
“I’m grieving the loss of my baby,” Watts said The Washington Post. “I feel anger, frustration and, sometimes, shame.”
The Ohio law under which Watts was charged reads: “No person, unless authorized by law, shall handle a human corpse in a manner which the person knows will offend reasonable family sensibilities” or “offend reasonable community sensibilities.”
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“Mrs. Watts suffered a tragic and dangerous miscarriage that threatened her life. Instead of focusing on physical and emotional healing, she was arrested and charged with a felony,” her attorney, Traci Timko, told CNN in an email.
Watts’ case is pending before a Trumbull County grand jury.
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Source: HIS Education