FACT CHECK: Viral TikTok claims Ohio woman was arrested for miscarriage. Is it true?

Since the fall of Roe v. Wade last year, abortion advocates have been issuing hysterical warnings of a future filled with women arrested or dying because they can’t access abortion. The reality, however, is nowhere near as grim; women have not been dying from an inability to intentionally kill their preborn children, and the much-publicized cases of so-called “medically necessary” abortions appear instead to be issues of medical malpractice and neglect.

And now, in Ohio, a TikTok video has gone viral, claiming a woman has been jailed for having a miscarriage — but once again, the facts are not lining up with the pro-abortion media narrative.

The viral story

A user named “tizzyent” posted a video yesterday, which has already racked up over 5,000 comments and over 60,000 “likes.” In it, he claimed a woman was arrested because of a miscarriage. Ultimately, he frames it as a symptom of evil pro-life laws, because women should be able to destroy their preborn babies’ bodies however they want. He wrote, “A 33 year old Ohio woman charged with a felony for having a miscarriage.” This statement is inaccurate.

“A 33-year-old woman in Ohio is being charged with felony abuse of a corpse, and if you’re like me, when you hear that charge, it probably conjures some pretty dark mental images, some fairly deviant behavior, maybe even something ritualistic,” he began. “I can tell you, she didn’t do anything like that, no. She’s being charged with felony abuse of a corpse because she had a miscarriage.”

Oddly, he then tried to argue that she didn’t even know what was happening — despite showing media clips about the case, and acknowledging she had been seen at the hospital multiple times about the pregnancy — and made statements about her frame of mind without any evidence.

“By all indications, [she] wanted the child,” he said. “Certainly didn’t have any ill intent toward this unborn child. [She] is being charged with a felony for experiencing something that women literally have to go through every day, and is horribly traumatic on its own. And she’s being charged with a felony for that. What is wrong with this world?”

But is this portrayal accurate?

The facts

According to local media, Brittany Watts was arrested in October, relating to a “death investigation” which took place in September. Watts was 22 weeks pregnant. There are conflicting reports regarding the baby; the Tribune-Chronicle said the police report indicated there were injuries to the baby’s body. Forensic pathologist Dr. George Sterbenz, however, testified that the baby had died in the womb.

“This fetus was going to be non-viable,” Sterbenz said. “It was going to be non-viable because she had premature ruptured membranes — her water had broken early — and the fetus was too young to be delivered.” At the time of this incident in Ohio, the state laws protecting preborn children from abortion had been blocked by the courts; pro-life laws have nothing to do with this case. Delivering the child early would have been entirely legal (no pro-life law prevents early delivery , even if the baby was too young to survive).

Assistant Prosecutor Lewis Guarnieri argued that the issue is not Watts’ having a miscarriage; it’s that she tried to plunge the baby’s body into the toilet. “The issue isn’t how the child died, when the child died — it’s the fact that the baby was put into a toilet, large enough to clog up a toilet, left in that toilet and she went on [with] her day,” he said.

Yet Traci Timko, Watts’ defense attorney, said that because the baby died in Watts’ womb, it doesn’t matter what happened to his or her body. “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,” she said, adding, “We aren’t there yet.”

Warning: Image of abortion victims below.

Miscarriage vs. stillbirth

Though in this case, Watts is said to have experienced a “miscarriage,” that isn’t quite true. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), and the March of Dimes, not all pregnancy losses are the same. A miscarriage is the death of a preborn child in the womb before 20 weeks; after 20 weeks, it is classified as a stillbirth.

Why does this make a difference in Brittany Watts’ case? Well, the prevailing argument in her favor seems to be that it is ludicrous to expect women to fish the bodies of miscarried babies out of toilets. And for a miscarriage, that very well could be true, considering the small size of the body:

Yet there is a vast difference between the body of a preborn baby in the first trimester, versus a 22-week baby which is now increasingly an age at which babies can survive premature birth.

At eight weeks, a preborn baby is roughly the size of a raspberry. At 22 weeks, a preborn baby is significantly larger — roughly the size of a papaya, and weighing around one pound.

Why this case matters

There’s no denying that what Brittany Watts experienced was, in all likelihood, deeply traumatic. But laws protecting the dignity of the human body are well-established. Ohio law states:

(A) No person, except as authorized by law, shall treat a human corpse in a way that the person knows would outrage reasonable family sensibilities.

(B) No person, except as authorized by law, shall treat a human corpse in a way that would outrage reasonable community sensibilities.

(C) Whoever violates division (A) of this section is guilty of abuse of a corpse, a misdemeanor of the second degree. Whoever violates division (B) of this section is guilty of gross abuse of a corpse, a felony of the fifth degree.

This was the body of a human being, possibly weighing upwards of a pound, forced down a toilet — clogging the pipes up so badly that they needed to be completely removed by police to retrieve the body.

Was Watts in a proper state of mind at the time? Perhaps not. Is there more to the story than we know right now? Possibly. The facts need to fully come to light before a determination can be made.

But what we do know is that, despite what this viral video claims, Brittany Watts was not arrested because she had a miscarriage. Therefore, we rate this claim to be misleading and inaccurate.

Like many catchy viral claims, the truth is much more complicated and nuanced. And pro-life or pro-abortion laws in place do not mean it is acceptable to desecrate a human body, attempt to flush it down a toilet, or throw it away like garbage.