this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2024
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United States | News & Politics

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[–] iforgotmyinstance 82 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If I was an Ohioan I'd be rallying against the DA who brought the charges at all. These laws are inhumane.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

DA wanted to drop it.

In a lengthy statement outlining the case and prosecution timeline, Dennis Watkins, the Trumbull County prosecutor, said that his office had found that Ms. Watts had not violated the law as claimed in the initial compliant and that it disagreed with a lower court’s application of the law after interviewing witnesses “and researching and applying the law.”

Last month, Mr. Watkins said his office was “duty bound” to follow Ohio law and move forward with a grand jury proceeding after Judge Terry Ivanchak of Municipal Court found probable cause for the grand jury review to proceed.

[–] grue 19 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Last month, Mr. Watkins said his office was “duty bound” to follow Ohio law and move forward with a grand jury proceeding after Judge Terry Ivanchak of Municipal Court found probable cause for the grand jury review to proceed.

At some point, the more important duty becomes to refuse to cooperate with even "lawful" christofascist tyranny. The "just following orders" excuse didn't work for Nazi concentration camp guards, and I'm not so sure it works for these judicial officials either!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 76 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

One idiot judge. The prosecutor's office had no interest in pursuing this, but the fucking cops and one idiot judge is what caused this to move forward.

The hospital notified the Warren City Police Department about the miscarriage and “the need to locate the fetus,” according to a coroner’s report.

I don't really understand what the hospital was hot about. She had been there for premature rupture of membranes and they didn't want to do surgical intervention. Why they felt the need to call the cops because they wanted the fetus, even if she left AMA, is beyond me. If she wanted to go home because they wouldn't offer a d and c and wanted her to pass it naturally, then let her go home.

Edit: sounds like her nursing staff called the cops after she went AMA, which is incredibly fucking annoying to me, as a nurse. It's within a patients rights to decline our care, particularly when it's ineffectual. You warn her that she could hemmorage and let her go home.

I honestly hope she sues that fucking hospital.

[–] money_loo 55 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Don’t forget the one idiot Christian nurse who simultaneously held this woman’s hand in the hospital and then reported her to the police because it’s against her beliefs.

[–] TheBat 42 points 11 months ago

No hate like Christian love

[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I wonder if the hospital violated HIPPA by giving the police her private medical information?

[–] geekworking 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Does this BS law make medical staff mandatory reporters? Mandatory reporting laws should go around privacy laws.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

I dunno but WTF were they expecting? Was she supposed to fish the bloody blob out of toilet and bring it in so they cab run a tox screen on it or something? Check it for coat hanger marks? It’s not like they’re gonna have something that looks like a well formed small baby. This shit is so dumb it would be comical if it wasn’t traumatizing and endangering women

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Maybe. There's loopholes for risks to safety and those loopholes depend on discretion which was seriously lacking in this case. I think it would be unlikely to be successful against a judge, but I also don't think it would be dismissed before trial and I wouldn't want to risk a jury trial if I was a hospital.

[–] grue 2 points 11 months ago

I'd say that the risks to her safety from them siccing the police on her far outweigh the risks to her safety from hemorrhaging. But hey, what do I know? I only have just as much medical training as the dipshit municipal court judge who decided to move forward with charges (which is to say, fuck-all)...

[–] [email protected] 65 points 11 months ago (3 children)

That poor woman. God damn.

If I were a woman I'd never have sex again with a man or I'd move the fuck out and claim refugee status in Canada.. God damn.

[–] macarthur_park 29 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If I were a woman I'd never have sex again with a man

Many of these states don’t have an exception for rape. So the only choice women get is whether or not they live in the state.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

And not everyone can afford to just pack up and move somewhere else.

[–] Son_of_dad 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

All women need to stop having sex with conservative men

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

ALL men. Imagine going through that ordeal when you had a PLANNED pregnancy and you lost the baby due to complications and you then risk going to fucking jail for murder. Fuck that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

No need to move to Canada. There are plenty of states with much looser laws. My own, Oregon, has made some adjustments to better accommodate women traveling from conservative states to the east like Idaho.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 11 months ago

Ms. Watts visited the hospital several times; on her first visit, she had to wait for eight hours so the hospital’s ethics board could determine the course of treatment, Ms. Timko said. Ms. Watts eventually passed the tissue at home and returned to the hospital.

Looks like conservatives finally got those "death panels" they were so worked up about when Obama tried to give everyone health insurance.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Being a woman and having sex is apparently a crime.

Any yet, at the same time, this will only create more Andy Tater-tots pissed off that they can't get laid.

[–] Illuminostro 5 points 11 months ago

She's also one of... those people. They need to make an example of one of them occasionally, to keep the from getting uppity.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 11 months ago (2 children)
[–] Omgarm 46 points 11 months ago (3 children)

USA news and Middle East news reads pretty much the same these days.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

It does, now that you mention it.

What a shitty time in history we live in.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

Holy shit, I wonder what the similarity could be.

[–] Illuminostro 4 points 11 months ago

"Al-Qaeda, or Y'all-Qaeda."

"What's the difference?"

"Exactly."

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago

Guess who's proud of this

orange man

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


A grand jury in Ohio on Thursday declined to indict a woman who had miscarried a nonviable fetus at home on a felony charge of abuse of a corpse, ending a case that had drawn international scrutiny from lawyers and reproductive health advocates who had argued the charge was baseless and could endanger other patients.

The woman, Brittany Watts, 34, of Warren, Ohio, was arrested in October after passing a fetus in her bathroom and trying to flush the remains down the toilet.

Ms. Watts was admitted to the hospital with vaginal bleeding on Sept. 19 when she was just over 21 weeks pregnant, right before the 22-week mark that would have made it a viable pregnancy under Ohio law.

The hospital notified the Warren City Police Department about the miscarriage and “the need to locate the fetus,” according to a coroner’s report.

The autopsy report found that the fetus had died in utero — before delivery — because of complications of premature rupturing of the membranes.

The case came at a time when access to reproductive health care was being debated across the country after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.


The original article contains 615 words, the summary contains 196 words. Saved 68%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

They're obviously using her as an example to others. These Christians are lucky Hell doesn't exist.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago