An American woman who had suffered a miscarriage will ultimately not be the subject of prosecution for “undermining the integrity of her remains”, local media reported on Thursday, the case having caused a stir in the United States, where the right to abortion is no longer constitutionally guaranteed.
Brittany Watts, a 34-year-old African-American woman near Cleveland, Ohio, was initially charged by a judge in the northern US state after police discovered a fetus in the pipes of her home. .
She was accused of not having treated the remains with dignity, illustrating the tensions over the status of fetuses between defenders and opponents of abortion rights in the United States.
The young woman risked up to a year in prison.
According to Brittany Watts’ lawyer cited by local channel Fox 8, her pregnant client went to the hospital in September for bleeding. A doctor then declared that her 22-week fetus was not viable.
The miscarriage took place a few days later at her home, and she then went to a Catholic hospital for further bleeding. A nurse then called the police saying: “I have a mother who gave birth at home and came without the baby.”
Investigators went to Brittany Watts’ home and seized her toilet as evidence.
A grand jury, a panel of citizens in the United States vested with investigative powers, decided not to prosecute the young woman, Fox 8 reported Thursday.
Since the Supreme Court overturned in the summer of 2022 the ruling which guaranteed the federal right of American women to terminate their pregnancies, the question of the right to abortion has returned to the states.
Ohio subsequently adopted a law banning most abortions – even in cases of rape or incest – as soon as a heartbeat can be detected. That is to say around six weeks, often before a woman even knows she is pregnant.
But in November, a few weeks after Brittany Watts’ indictment, voters approved in a referendum the inclusion of the right to abortion in the Ohio Constitution.
The prosecution of Brittany Watts caused an outcry in the United States, where abortion rights activists saw her case as a criminalization of miscarriages.
“Brittany should never have had to go through this. And no one should have to go through it again,” the abortion rights group If/When/How said on X on Thursday.
