cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/11111745
The 33-year-old Watts, who had not shared the news of her pregnancy even with her family, made her first prenatal visit to a doctor’s office behind Mercy Health-St. Joseph’s Hospital in Warren, a working-class city about 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Cleveland.
The doctor said that, while a fetal heartbeat was still present, Watts’ water had broken prematurely and the fetus she was carrying would not survive. He advised heading to the hospital to have her labor induced, so she could have what amounted to an abortion to deliver the nonviable fetus. Otherwise, she would face “significant risk” of death, according to records of her case.
That was a Tuesday in September. What followed was a harrowing three days entailing: multiple trips to the hospital; Watts miscarrying into, and then flushing and plunging, a toilet at her home; a police investigation of those actions; and Watts, who is Black, being charged with abuse of a corpse. That’s a fifth-degree felony punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine.
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The 33-year-old Watts, who had not shared the news of her pregnancy even with her family, made her first prenatal visit to a doctor’s office behind Mercy Health-St. Joseph’s Hospital in Warren, a working-class city about 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Cleveland.
Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump elevated Watts’ plight in a post to X, formerly Twitter, and supporters have donated more than $100,000 through GoFundMe for her legal defense, medical bills and trauma counseling.
Michele Goodwin, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, and author of “Policing The Womb,” said those efforts have long overwhelmingly targeted Black and brown women.
Her lawyer believes Watts may have meant that she didn’t want to fish what she knew was a dead fetus from the bucket of blood, tissue and feces that she’d scooped from her overflowing toilet.
“This 33-year-old girl with no criminal record is demonized for something that goes on every day,” she told Warren Municipal Court Judge Terry Ivanchak during Watts’ recent preliminary hearing.
Warren Assistant Prosecutor Lewis Guarnieri told Ivanchak that Watts left home for a hair appointment after miscarrying, leaving the toilet clogged.
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