{"id":324771,"date":"2025-01-22T12:46:55","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T18:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=324771"},"modified":"2025-01-22T06:09:01","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T12:09:01","slug":"woman-flushing-stillborn-sues-hospital-staff-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/woman-flushing-stillborn-sues-hospital-staff-police\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman arrested for flushing stillborn baby down toilet sues hospital, medical staff, and police"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Brittany Watts was arrested in 2023 and charged with abuse of a corpse following a stillbirth in her Ohio home, and her subsequent attempt to flush the second-trimester baby’s body down the toilet. Now, Watts has filed a lawsuit<\/a> against the hospital, the City, two nurses, the OB\/GYN overseeing her care, and multiple police officers.<\/p>\n

All charges were dropped against Watts in January 2024 when a grand jury refused to indict her, and she is now suing for damages \u2014 including mental and emotional distress, alleging that the police and hospital staff conspired against her. While the lawsuit provides more details to the story, it simultaneously presents more questions as well.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit accuses the defendants of false arrest, prosecution without probable cause, unconstitutional interrogation, due process violation, conspiracy, Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) violation, malicious prosecution, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, medical negligence, unauthorized disclosure of medical information, and indemnification.<\/p>\n

New details revealed<\/strong><\/h3>\n

First hospital visit: Placental abruption diagnosis<\/strong><\/p>\n

The lawsuit<\/a> claims that on September 19, 2023, Watts was 21 weeks pregnant, though she believed she was only a few weeks along. She went to St. Joseph Warren Hospital in Youngstown, Ohio, after she began experiencing pain and bleeding. While at the hospital, she was diagnosed with placental abruption, which, according to the Mayo Clinic<\/a>, occurs when the placenta separates from the inner wall of the uterus before birth, potentially depriving the baby of oxygen and nutrients and causing heavy bleeding in the mother. In some cases, it is necessary to carry out an emergency C-section, even if the baby is too young to survive.<\/p>\n

The Mayo Clinic states<\/a> that if the abruption “seems mild, your baby’s heart rate is normal and it’s too early for the baby to be born, you might be hospitalized for close monitoring.” If the bleeding stops, the mother might be sent home to rest. Doctors can also give medications to help the baby’s lungs develop and protect the baby’s brain in case preterm delivery does occur. If the baby is 34 weeks or older, an immediate C-section is the standard of care, according to the Mayo Clinic.<\/p>\n

The Cleveland Clinic<\/a> also states that a C-section would be necessary if the abruption is severe, even when the baby is preterm.<\/p>\n

“Generally, the severity of the abruption and gestational age of the fetus are the two most important factors in determining treatment,” according to Cleveland Clinic. It notes, “A severe abruption is usually a medical emergency because both the fetus and birthing parent are at risk for life-threatening complications.”<\/p>\n

Though doctors told Watts of her diagnosis and the dangers associated with placental abruption, the lawsuit alleges that she spent eight hours at the hospital with “no meaningful treatment or guidance,” adding, “Devastated and scared, she returned home.”<\/p>\n

The lawsuit fails to specify whether Watts was discharged<\/em> from the hospital or if she left<\/em> against medical advice.<\/p>\n

Second hospital visit: Infection sets in<\/strong><\/p>\n

The lawsuit further claims that Watts returned to the hospital the following morning of September 20, in worse<\/em> condition. Her water had broken (preterm premature rupture of membranes\/PPROM), her cervix was dilated, and she had an infection.<\/p>\n

“Her pregnancy was doomed, her doctor told her; and until the fetus was removed, Ms. Watts was at risk of hemorrhaging, sepsis, and death,” says the lawsuit. “Time was of the essence.”<\/p>\n

Doctors reportedly said that her baby “was non-viable and would either die in utero or shortly after delivery.” While children born as young as 21 weeks have survived<\/em><\/a>, St. Joseph Warren Hospital does not have a NICU<\/a> equipped to care for a baby born at 21 weeks. There are<\/em> five hospitals<\/a> in Ohio, however, that do<\/em> treat extremely premature babies, and Watts could have been transferred to one of those hospitals if her child was still alive.<\/p>\n

Based on the information provided by the Cleveland Clinic<\/a>, with all of the complications Watts was experiencing, delivery was the best option at that point.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit states, “The standard of care for a person in Ms. Watts’ condition was to induce labor or to perform a dilation and evacuation (“D&E”) procedure, depending on the patient’s preference. Either approach would protect the pregnant woman’s health and life, with the D&E allowing for a quicker resolution without the need for labor and delivery.”<\/p>\n

It is because of this that the lawsuit further states that the hospital violated EMTALA, which the lawsuit states “requires emergency departments to provide stabilizing treatment to pregnant individuals in labor, pregnant individuals who have emergency conditions unrelated to labor, and individuals who need emergency treatment or manage pregnancy loss. For some pregnant individuals experiencing a medical emergency, including prolonged miscarriages where the pregnancy is nonviable but fetal cardiac activity remains, the necessary stabilizing treatment is terminating the pregnancy in a medical setting, where healthcare providers can guard against the risks of infection, hemorrhage, and stroke (among others).”<\/p>\n

This has wrongly been construed to mean induced abortion<\/em> \u2014 the act of directly and intentionally killing the preborn child \u2014 is a standard of care for pregnancy emergencies and is equal to “terminating the pregnancy.” These are both false assumptions.<\/p>\n

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote<\/a> in the court’s guidance regarding two lawsuits concerning abortion and EMTALA, \u201cThe United States also clarified that if pregnancy seriously jeopardizes the woman\u2019s health postviability,\u00a0EMTALA requires delivery, not abortion<\/strong>. Brief for United States 10; Tr. of Oral Arg. 75. And it emphasized that\u00a0EMTALA requires abortion only in an ’emergency acute medical situation,’ where a woman\u2019s health is in jeopardy if she does not receive an abortion \u2018then and there.\u2019<\/strong> Tr. of Oral Arg. 79\u201380. These two temporal points also narrow the scope of EMTALA\u2019s potential conflict with Idaho\u2019s Act.”<\/p>\n

Justice Samuel Alito also wrote in this dissent (emphasis added), “\u2026 the right to refuse medical treatment without consent does not entail the right to demand treatment that is prohibited by law. Cancer patients have the right to refuse treatment that their doctors recommend, but they do not have a right to obtain whatever treatment they want, such as the administration of a drug that cannot legally be used in this country.<\/p>\n

“Likewise here, a woman\u2019s right to withhold consent to treatment related to her pregnancy does not mean that she can demand an abortion. For these reasons,\u00a0the text of EMTALA conclusively shows that it does not require hospitals to perform abortions<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

A D&E procedure on a baby who has not died naturally in the womb<\/em> involves the dismemberment of that living child through the use of a Sopher clamp to grasp her arms and legs and tear them off. It is not medically necessary to end a pregnancy by dismembering a living preborn child who is capable of feeling pain<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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