Could women be criminally charged for miscarrying?
Decades ago, the abortion debate often involved photos of bloodied fetuses paraded around on placards and plastered across the sides of overthe-road trucks by groups like Operation Rescue.
The intention was to horrify. Revulsion was the goal.
Back then, too many people naively assumed that access to abortion, under limited conditions, would be legally protected by the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973. Then came the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson in 2022, a decision that removed federal protections, throwing the question of abortion’s legality back to the states.
And we’ve been digressing ever since, floundering to remain calm and reasonable as states decide where they stand legally.
Too often, medical science is undercut by politics, by the same politically minded activists who once thought bloodied images of fetuses driven through city streets was a viable tactic.
Here’s an overlooked stat: As of 2020, the majority of abortions in the U.S. – well over 50 percent – were carried out with a pill, by simply taking medication.
Increasingly, there is no medical procedure akin to a surgery. Women seeking an abortion often follow a protocol of taking two different types of pills over several days. If done early, before 11 weeks, the pills are effective.
Medication abortions have been available for more than 20 years as an FDA-approved method.
The medications are not allowed, nor are they effective, far later in a pregnancy.
This truth about how most abortions occur, however, doesn’t hold the same ability to mortify, like a bloody fetus. There’s no clinic, no sedation protocols, no doctor readily available to demonize.
All of this is important to understand in the case of one young mother in Ohio.
Brittany Watts, 33, miscarried at home in September, over the toilet. And yes, she probably panicked or was too distraught to manage well what she did next. She later told a nurse that she’d put some of the discharge – blood, tissue, her own feces from the miscarriage – into a bucket outside of her home.
Eventually, some of the remains of the 15-ounce fetus were found by police when they took the toilet apart to get into the plumbing. Watts was charged with a felony, abuse of a corpse. If found guilty, she could be imprisoned for up to a year. The charge underscores the idea of a fetus as a child, a baby, a life lost.
And for the ghouls who prey on this type of thing to push their messaging, the fact that Watts wanted the child, that she didn’t try to abort, doesn’t seem to matter.
Charging Watts with a crime is a disturbing precedent, implying that women can be judged as criminals if they fail to carry a child to term.
The background here is important. Conservative legislatures, often dismissing science and the expertise of doctors, are rushing to create laws that they think will “protect babies and life.”
In November, voters in Ohio (where Watts resides) approved the right to an abortion within the state constitution. It’s one of the states where people are pushing back, trying to reestablish reasonable standards for when abortion is allowed. Such standards should include the high percentages of miscarriages, especially early in pregnancy.
But in September, when Watts began hemorrhaging blood clots, and was in and out of the hospital for several days, her medical team hesitated. Because she was in her second trimester (about 22 weeks) the medical staff was concerned they could be charged with a crime. Up to 22 weeks is the cutoff for abortion in Ohio.
The team had already determined that the pregnancy wasn’t viable. And a later autopsy revealed that the fetus had died before Watts miscarried over the toilet.
But doctors, nurses and administrators now need to balance patient care against the prospect of being charged if they dare step too close to what legislators determine is criminal. The county prosecutor is being pressured to drop the ridiculous charge against Watts. And a grand jury is deciding whether to indict her.
And the nation now has Watts as an example of legal overreach when medical expertise should have governed.