Woman charged with felony for having a stillbirth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a stillborn at 22 weeks (in the hospital). At 22 weeks, it looks just like a very small baby. Mine weighed just over a pound.

The nurses wrapped her up in a swaddle so I could hold her. If she had hung on for another week, she would have probably been viable in a NICU.

Just for the record, the hospital (GW) required that we go to a funeral home for either burial or cremation. They don't just toss the baby away in a toilet.

People are reading this case completely wrong. She was not prosecuted for having a stillborn.

You’re lucky that didn't happen in Ohio, because in Ohio the hospital would have sent you home to clear the stillborn fetus on your own. You may very well have turned out just like the other women in Ohio who had a similar experience. Thank your stars that you live in an area with legal access to abortions. And be careful before you judge women who don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a stillborn at 22 weeks (in the hospital). At 22 weeks, it looks just like a very small baby. Mine weighed just over a pound.

The nurses wrapped her up in a swaddle so I could hold her. If she had hung on for another week, she would have probably been viable in a NICU.

Just for the record, the hospital (GW) required that we go to a funeral home for either burial or cremation. They don't just toss the baby away in a toilet.

People are reading this case completely wrong. She was not prosecuted for having a stillborn.

she *wasn’t in the hospital*. that’s the whole point. she was either turned away or didn’t know to go. do you think that just because she didn’t have access to the same care you did, including the hospital handling the remains, she should go to jail? she is *absolutely* being prosecuted for having a still birth in a way that grossed out the male cops & judge. I am not sure what I would have done but flushing a nonviable fetus I just gave birth to in the toilet might have been a reflex action.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a stillborn at 22 weeks (in the hospital). At 22 weeks, it looks just like a very small baby. Mine weighed just over a pound.

The nurses wrapped her up in a swaddle so I could hold her. If she had hung on for another week, she would have probably been viable in a NICU.

Just for the record, the hospital (GW) required that we go to a funeral home for either burial or cremation. They don't just toss the baby away in a toilet.

People are reading this case completely wrong. She was not prosecuted for having a stillborn.

Do you think it should be prosecuted as a felony?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a stillborn at 22 weeks (in the hospital). At 22 weeks, it looks just like a very small baby. Mine weighed just over a pound.

The nurses wrapped her up in a swaddle so I could hold her. If she had hung on for another week, she would have probably been viable in a NICU.

Just for the record, the hospital (GW) required that we go to a funeral home for either burial or cremation. They don't just toss the baby away in a toilet.

People are reading this case completely wrong. She was not prosecuted for having a stillborn.

As a person who had a stillbirth delivery at Sibley, there is also the default option of the baby being cremated with other fetal remains/babies and either buried or the ashes dispersed in a common area. We saw that was selected that at first but then caught it later. I believe WHC and GW have the same options. No one is required to go to a funeral home. Technically, legally, you as the parent are the next of kin to the baby and can even take them home for a funeral/ceremony there if you wish. A funeral home can of course facilitate this, but it is your right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a stillborn at 22 weeks (in the hospital). At 22 weeks, it looks just like a very small baby. Mine weighed just over a pound.

The nurses wrapped her up in a swaddle so I could hold her. If she had hung on for another week, she would have probably been viable in a NICU.

Just for the record, the hospital (GW) required that we go to a funeral home for either burial or cremation. They don't just toss the baby away in a toilet.

People are reading this case completely wrong. She was not prosecuted for having a stillborn.

Very sorry about your loss. I know how hard that is.

But your experience giving birth in the safe space of a hospital lying in bed with medical professionals taking care of you and your stillborn is in no way the equivalent of a woman alone who had not been admitted to a hospital but instead passed the contents of her womb into a toilet with god knows what else (stools, urine, blood, uterine lining, placenta). You did not face the situation of this woman of having to stick your hand into a toilet to fish out your stillborn. So please hold off from judging when you weren’t witness to what she went through.

[Anonymous]

As someone whose had many miscarriages under 16 weeks they never give you the option. They take your baby every single time and then rip a foot off for genetic testing and describe that in the record.

[Anonymous]

I can’t believe the lack of compassion for this woman. She went to a hospital TWICE seeking help. She was told it was a non-viable fetus and we have zero idea what instructions she was given - but likely to just wait for her body to have a natural miscarriage. But we do know given the Ohio laws at the time, that she was not given an abortion - which would be the standard of care in any pre-Dobbs/ non-Catholic hospital.

We don’t know how big the fetus was - for all we know, it stopped growing at 10 weeks. Miscarriages are awful, bloody messes. She likely wouldn’t have even seen a fetus in the toilet - just blood.

I hope she sues the hospital and state of Ohio and wins a million dollars.

[Anonymous]

Where was she supposed to put it?

Bring it to the hospital?
Bury it in the yard?

I dont understand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That poor woman. She was probably in shock.

So shocked she went on about her day and later tried to plunge the clogged toilet? They told her twice her baby wasn't viable at the hospital.

Unless they told her something else to do with the body, what else was she supposed to do? Fish it out of the toilet and bury it in her back yard? Call a funeral home? She probably didn’t even know how big it was or want to look.

There’s a reason that women in her position used to be offered therepeutic abortions - to spare them the trauma of having to deal with delivering a stillbirth. But Ohio outlawed this, so this is what happened.

Call for help.

Nice try though trying to blame this on an entire state.

Call who?
911?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where was she supposed to put it?

Bring it to the hospital?
Bury it in the yard?

I dont understand.

Yeah, 35 pages in, none of the sanctimonious posters who claim that this woman’s actions violated “common sense “ have explicitly stated what this woman should have done.

Many of us with “late” periods have flushed the contents when those periods return. We don’t know what instructions, if ant, this woman was given. We do know that there isn’t a clear consensus— because no one here has bothered to state what the appropriate responses might be. I guess those abstinence only classes didn’t cover it.

[Anonymous]

If you read other news articles, this woman attempted to flush the dead fetus, but it got lodged in the toilet, so she used a plunger, unsuccessfully. Once the authorities knew, the entire toilet was removed so that an autopsy could be performed. I’m sure she’s incredibly traumatized from being denied healthcare, losing her baby, giving birth to a dead baby at home, and getting her baby’s corpse stuck in a toilet.

She made a very poor decision in trying to flush the fetus, but I don’t know if she ever looked in the toilet bowl after it was expelled from her body. Maybe she was scared to look. Maybe that’s an image she didn’t want stuck in her head forever. Maybe she did look and freaked out. Maybe she couldn’t think straight. I have no idea.

When women miscarry the products of conception at, say, 6 or 8 weeks gestation, it’s not uncommon for that to get flushed. At 22 weeks, this baby was much larger and more developed and clearly couldn’t be flushed — but it was still short of viability and was not alive. The state of Ohio had better clearly articulate the point at which flushing a miscarriage or stillbirth becomes a crime, and the guideline should be more precise than “when it’s too big to be flushed successfully.”

It’s so wrong to prosecute this poor woman.

[Anonymous]

Well said PP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you read other news articles, this woman attempted to flush the dead fetus, but it got lodged in the toilet, so she used a plunger, unsuccessfully. Once the authorities knew, the entire toilet was removed so that an autopsy could be performed. I’m sure she’s incredibly traumatized from being denied healthcare, losing her baby, giving birth to a dead baby at home, and getting her baby’s corpse stuck in a toilet.

She made a very poor decision in trying to flush the fetus, but I don’t know if she ever looked in the toilet bowl after it was expelled from her body. Maybe she was scared to look. Maybe that’s an image she didn’t want stuck in her head forever. Maybe she did look and freaked out. Maybe she couldn’t think straight. I have no idea.

When women miscarry the products of conception at, say, 6 or 8 weeks gestation, it’s not uncommon for that to get flushed. At 22 weeks, this baby was much larger and more developed and clearly couldn’t be flushed — but it was still short of viability and was not alive. The state of Ohio had better clearly articulate the point at which flushing a miscarriage or stillbirth becomes a crime, and the guideline should be more precise than “when it’s too big to be flushed successfully.”

It’s so wrong to prosecute this poor woman.

+1. This woman was failed by so many people. Let’s just say Jesus isn’t going to look kindly on those prosecuting her because she didn’t drop $20k on a full funeral with all the fixins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what is wrong with you people? read the psot. She left the fetus in the toilet "and went about with her life"

do you know how many miscarriages are flushed? at what point does it become a felony? the women of Ohio need to know, since in between getting denied care for their high-risk pregnancies, this may happen.

I flushed my miscarriage down the toilet. Was I not supposed to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you read other news articles, this woman attempted to flush the dead fetus, but it got lodged in the toilet, so she used a plunger, unsuccessfully. Once the authorities knew, the entire toilet was removed so that an autopsy could be performed. I’m sure she’s incredibly traumatized from being denied healthcare, losing her baby, giving birth to a dead baby at home, and getting her baby’s corpse stuck in a toilet.

She made a very poor decision in trying to flush the fetus, but I don’t know if she ever looked in the toilet bowl after it was expelled from her body. Maybe she was scared to look. Maybe that’s an image she didn’t want stuck in her head forever. Maybe she did look and freaked out. Maybe she couldn’t think straight. I have no idea.

When women miscarry the products of conception at, say, 6 or 8 weeks gestation, it’s not uncommon for that to get flushed. At 22 weeks, this baby was much larger and more developed and clearly couldn’t be flushed — but it was still short of viability and was not alive. The state of Ohio had better clearly articulate the point at which flushing a miscarriage or stillbirth becomes a crime, and the guideline should be more precise than “when it’s too big to be flushed successfully.”

It’s so wrong to prosecute this poor woman.

+1. This woman was failed by so many people. Let’s just say Jesus isn’t going to look kindly on those prosecuting her because she didn’t drop $20k on a full funeral with all the fixins.

Exactly. WWJD? I bet he’d pick this poor woman up in his arms and give her the love and compassion she deserves as a grieving mother of a lost baby.

He certainly wouldn’t vilify her and slap handcuffs on her and try to make her rot in jail.