Ohio was in the throes of a bitter debate over abortion rights this fall when Brittany Watts, 21 weeks and 5 days pregnant, began passing thick blood clots.
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.
The fact she’s black feels like it’s not really needed in this story. This is about her being able to make babies. Throwing in “who is black” is trying to make this about race instead of it being about abortion.
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LEO and DAs always have to look strong. The weaker the offender, the stronger they look.
BuT rAcE dOeSnT mAtTeR.
Women of color are more likely to die during pregnancy, abortion is deeply rooted in racsim.
conservativesracists want people of color to die and white women to make more white babies.Intersectional theory is a thing, check it out
The article did mention that black mothers are much more likely to have CPS called on them when coming in for prenatal care and that legal matters around pregnancy “overwhelmingly target black and brown women”. The article seems to support that notion. However, there are a lot of elements to this case that make it very unique, even without racial consideration.
No way this is an issue for a rich white lady. The police would bring her a trauma blanket and coffee to get over her ordeal. (But since she’s black she must have done something to cause the miscarriage so she needs to be persecuted.) that’s how are justice system works if you didn’t know