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Woman charged with felony for having a stillbirth
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Anonymous
Do miscarriage remains have to be disposed of in a particular way? Are they treated differently than stillborn remains? |
Anonymous
Interesting. Did you flush? |
Anonymous
| That poor woman is going to be forced to get in front of non-medical professional men and testify in public about her menstrual cycle, when she had sex, when her water broke, what her labor pains were like, how long it took for the fetus to come out of her vagina, what else was in the toilet, how much she bled, etc etc. Awful to put her through that after she had a pregnancy loss. |
Anonymous
The only reasonable thing for an Ohio woman to do is put the miscarriage into a baggie and mail it to the Warren, Ohio police to decide what to do with it. |
Anonymous
Define "baby size". Are there special fetus "sizers" I am supposed to keep by my toilet? Do they send you home with them from the hospital when they tell you your fetus is not viable and send you home to deliver the miscarriage at home instead of giving you a D + C? Does it say "If the fetus/products of conception fit through this hole, OK to dispose of on your own; if they are larger than this hole, you must call a funeral home?" |
Anonymous
OK, so the stillbirth fetus got stuck in the pipes, and probably a plumber had to be called, and that's why the police got involved. |
Anonymous
I looked that up too. CDC says 20 weeks. WHO says 28 weeks. UK says 24 weeks. Hardly "common knowledge" Her lawyer: Timko argues that no law requires a mother suffering from a miscarriage of a non-viable fetus to bury or cremate the remains. “Women miscarry into toilets everyday. If the state of Ohio expects these women to fish those remains from the toilet and deliver them to a hospital, funeral home or crematorium, the laws need changed,” Timko said, adding that “we aren’t there yet.” Hopefully the grand jury will decline to indict. The average weight of a 22 week old fetus is 11 ounces. Think of a pint bottle of milk and then imagine something less than 3/4 that bottle in size, and fishing it out of the bloody toilet bowl. |
Anonymous
You wouldn't know, because you haven't been through it. When delivering a baby at 22 weeks you are quite sure when the baby comes out. It is an incredibly painful process, like any unmedicated labor. And were it to come out and land in a toilet with a lot of blood, you still cannot miss it. It is the size of a small doll. It is not, as many people here want to believe, some ball of goo. It is a baby. I have pictures of mine. She could not possibly have not seen it and yes, it would be very very easy to "fish" it out and wrap it in a towel, as any caring, loving mother would. I have been through it. You have not. |
Anonymous
A baby at 22 weeks gestation is not the same as a first-term miscarriage. This is what those of you who haven't been through do not understand. It's sad. So many of us go through trials in life and delivering a non-viable baby is something many of us have endured. I held and told my baby I loved her. In a million years, despite the pain, shock, and sadness of what I was going through would I ever have dreamed of flushing it down the toilet. It's very sad for this woman. Going through hard times in life does not excuse disgusting behavior. Maybe it doesn't need to be a felony, but she needs to be investigated. Because it isn't normal, ethical, human behavior to flush a baby at 22 weeks gestation down the toilet. Again, if you haven't delivered or seen one in person, you simply can't understand. |
Anonymous
So you didn’t have to stick your hand into a toilet bowel full of blood, uterine lining, stools, urine, and clumps of toilet paper to pull out a dead fetus. But you want a loving mother award for saying you absolutely would have done so. Fine I’ll give you that. Knowing of course that we all can say how brave we’d be in the trenches. There are many humans out there who might even be loving mothers who would be completely freaked out at the thought of sticking their hand into such a mess. Especially if they were in shock at just having that all pass out of their body and without any pain relief. Also, it’s okay for women not to have maternal feelings. It really is. I know you want to judge this woman whom you don’t even know for not being enough of a loving mother but not everyone has the same feelings you do toward pregnancy. I’ve had friends who felt relief at their miscarriage. They are not monsters. They are humans with different lives than you. |
Anonymous
How about if she is given help rather than harassed by an investigation. Why don’t you get it that your experience of giving birth in a hospital probably with your husband or partner next to you holding your hand and a nurse tenderly wiping your brow is NOT the same experience of a woman who went twice to a hospital and was not admitted going home and passing her pregnancy alone in a bathroom? You don’t even know if it was 22 weeks. It might have been 20. It might have been 19 if her periods were irregular. You are not her. It’s incredible you went through such sorrow and have no compassion for another woman. |
Anonymous
A 14 week fetus also looks like a baby. Can women flush that or is that a felony? You’re arguing that a woman should *go to jail* because she did not experience and react to her stillbirth the same way you did. Jail for every woman who does not conform to your belief about what “any caring, loving mother would do.” |
Anonymous
She already knew the baby was dead, likely needed to clean up the only bathroom in the house, was physically in pain and possibly bleeding heavily… the fact that anyone can judge her action at all as being “uncaring” or “unethical” is simply astonishing to me. When my baby was born he wasn’t breathing well. He needed to go to the NICU for observation but the midwife tried to get me to hold him first. I was totally horrified and panicked and refused, said “get him out of here” because if they were saying he needed the NICU I did not want to see or touch him - I wanted him in the NICU. Then everyone cleared out of the L&D room instantly and left me alone. I was totally out of my mind from the stress & meds - I did not really get what was happening and probably appeared happy. I didn’t even think to ask to see my DS until a nurse came and got me 4 hrs later to nurse him. I wonder if somone seeing these reactions would say I was an uncaring mother and should have the baby taken away? |
Anonymous
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Unless the Ohio penal code spells out the exact point in pregnancy where you can no longer dispose of the products of conception or a deceased embryo or fetus, I don’t see how a jury could convict her. Does Ohio law establish the moment that a fetus attains personhood? Does a deceased fetus attain personhood status even before the point viability for living fetuses? If so, how could anyone reasonably know at what point in gestation that occurs?
This absurd case is extremely problematic legally. She probably can’t be convicted on the merits of the case and it’s a travesty to convict her based on emotions. This is abuse of our legal system to target a grieving woman for political points. It’s beyond the pale. |
Anonymous
And I hope that the PP takes the lead in researching all of the different laws throughout the US — as well as noting the places that likely have no relevant laws — and prepares inserts that can be attached to period products so that everyone impacted by these laws will have the opportunity to know how they might potentially be impacted. PP — when “rule of law” means what mostly white, mostly male, mostly Fundamentalist Christian lawmakers seek to impose on the rest of us, it really is ok to stop venerating its validity. I’m Black and female and old enough to get that the “rule of law” can be deliberately abused— and really isn’t the same thing as justice. |