The Ohio woman who faced a felony charge after she miscarried her baby in her own home talked about her hospital experiences that took place just days before her miscarriage, including during a visit in which she was supposed to be induced.
Brittany Watts, 34, became nationally known after she was bizarrely charged with abuse of a corpse days after suffering a miscarriage on a toilet in her home. As the country still contends with the end of Roe v. Wade’s abortion protections and the drastic changes to women’s reproductive rights, Watts’ story served as an example to many who have increased concerns about criminalizing abortions and cases like Watts.
Watts was admitted twice to the hospital last September before her miscarriage after experiencing severe cramping and bleeding. However, after having to wait hours in a hospital room for medical care during those visits, she left.
On the day of her first hospital visit, Watts first visited her OB-GYN after she started experiencing bleeding. Her doctor told her that her fetus wasn’t viable and called an ambulance to send her directly to Mercy Health St. Joseph Warren Hospital for treatment. She spent eight hours there, asking nurses for updates on her vitals and requesting to see the doctor, but she became fed up with the long wait time and left.
“I felt frustrated,” Watts told CBS Mornings. “I felt ignored.”
A hospital report notes she left “against medical advice” and was warned that she was at risk of complications, including hemorrhage, sepsis, and even death, due to her condition at the time.
She came back to the hospital a day later, where a doctor said she needed immediate treatment. She expected to be induced into labor, but after waiting 11 hours, she decided to leave and never received the procedure. She miscarried two days after that visit.
What Watts didn’t know was that the hospital referred her case to the Mercy Health ethics committee after Watts suggested abortion as a treatment option. On the day of the visit in which she thought she would be induced, doctors were waiting to hear back from the ethics board before going through with the procedure. They were reportedly concerned about whether the labor induction would violate Ohio’s abortion laws.
The Issue of Abortion In Brittany Watts’ Case
The ethics committee did send a notice that day communicating their support for the induction procedure as long as doctors had reason enough to believe that the pregnancy could put Watts at risk of more bleeding or infection. However, hospital staff spent more time ironing out any remaining issues, while Watts stated she sat waiting without any knowledge about the ethics committee’s involvement. She ultimately became frustrated with another long wait time and delayed care and left.
Ohio state law outlaws abortions 22 weeks into a pregnancy, with exceptions to life-saving care. At the time of her hospital visits, Watts was 21 weeks pregnant. By the time she miscarried, she hit 22 weeks.
In cases of a nonviable pregnancy, spontaneous miscarriage may occur, or medical interventions such as dilation and curettage or medication may be required to eliminate any remaining fetal tissue. There are no available treatments or methods to salvage a nonviable pregnancy, according to VeryWell Family.
The day she miscarried, she was taken to the hospital again to be evaluated. During that visit, a nurse called police about Watts’ miscarriage. According to a 911 audio recording obtained by CBS News, the nurse told police that Watts “didn’t want to look” at the fetus and that Watts “didn’t want the baby and she didn’t look.”
Watts said that this was not true.
“I said I did not want to look,” Watts said. “I have never said I didn’t want my baby. I would have never said something like that. It just makes me angry that somebody would put those type of words in my mouth to make me seem so callous and so — so hateful.”
Watts was charged with abuse of a corpse days later. However, her charge was dropped after a grand jury decided not to indict Watts this month. Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins said, “Watts did not violate the Ohio criminal statute.”
Watts said that she believed she was charged out of racial motivation.
Her attorney, Traci Timko, said that Watts was portrayed as a “young, unmarried Black woman that did not comply with their orders to keep waiting” and that the hospital “weaponized the police.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that Black women are three times more likely than white women to die from a pregnancy-related cause. This disparity is attributed to variations in quality healthcare, underlying chronic conditions, structural racism, and implicit bias. This trend is even more troubling when research shows that more than 80 percent of pregnancy-related deaths are preventable.
Black women die from pregnancy-related causes more than any other racial group, according to the National Institutes of Health. Data shows that the maternal mortality rate increased by 33 percent after the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, but the percentage of maternal deaths among Black and Hispanic women was higher during the early part of the pandemic.
