Brittany Watts, 33, was charged after police searched her toilet following her miscarriage in September.
A Black woman in Ohio has been charged with a felony for abuse of a corpse after she miscarried into her toilet, according to a criminal complaint, and reproductive rights experts are warning that it could set a dangerous precedent if she is convicted.
The attorney for Brittany Watts and a campaign organized on her behalf called the charges against her unjust, saying they feared the case could open the door to similar prosecutions and lawsuits over miscarriages nationwide.
Just hours after Watts, 33, was admitted to a hospital for a life-threatening hemorrhage after she miscarried in her bathroom Sep. 22, police removed her toilet from her home and searched it for fetal remains, according to a GoFundMe set up to fund her legal expenses and home repairs.
“Ms. Watts suffered a tragic and dangerous miscarriage that jeopardized her own life. Rather than focusing on healing physically and emotionally, she was arrested and charged with a felony and is fighting for her freedom and reputation,” her attorney, Traci Timko, said in a statement.
In America, people of color are poorly treated by police, the justice system, and the healthcare system. It is important to point out examples of this when we see it, because our system usually starts treating marginalized groups unfairly as a test to see how badly they can treat everyone.
It is very common for police to look for chargabe offenses they pin on a Black person, but not so much for white people. Once there are charges, prosecutors typically focus on conviction at all costs, especially for Black defendants.
Here we have the trifecta: a Black woman has a miscarriage and call for help, and the police show up and immediately look for reasons to arrest her. While she’s recovering from a miscarriage, she’s hit with charges of abusing a corpse because she had the audacity to miscarry in a toilet. Now she’s facing felony charges related to a miscarriage in a state that has passed such draconian anti-abortion laws that even miscarrying could lead to murder charges.
So we absolutely have to say exactly what is happening, because if we don’t, this woman and countless others will end up locked in cages with their rights stripped away from them for daring to exist in a way that didn’t satisfy the white supremacist / christofacist factions in this country.