Woman Charged with Abuse of Corpse Sparks National Debate on Treatment of Pregnant Women

community sensibilities. “What’s offensive to one person is not necessarily offensive to another,” she told the judge.A decade ago, the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a woman in a similar case, when she was charged under the same statute after attempting to dispose of her stillborn fetus in a trash can. In vacating her conviction, the court found the law-made her criminally liable as an appendage of the state’s common law — violated the rights to privacy, bodily integrity, and equal protection of the laws for pregnant women guaranteed under the Ohio Constitution and due process clause. Timko said she hoped the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision could be influential for Watts. She was offered a plea deal, but Watts refused it. “This is the front line,” Timko said. “This is the hot-button political, cultural, social issue of this decade, and it’s part and parcel of her case.”Watts, who cleaned houses while working on her GED, lost her job because of her arrest, trauma and the looming prosecution, her attorney said. Her mental health has also suffered. Watts has an addiction to marijuana and pleaded guilty in January 2023 to possessing drugs to support a man who’s now in prison for killing a police detective. She said she regularly smokes marijuana for trauma-related anxiety and also has been self-medicating through alcohol to cope with PTSD, Timko said. In patient, chemical dependency and mental health services are unavailable to her because they don’t take federal health insurance for low-income and disabled people, her attorney said. The GoFundMe has provided money that enabled her, among other things, to take down the jailhouse bondsman’s services now that she’s out on bond and to enter an intensive outpatient substance abuse treatment program. As her case wore on in the public arena of the court, as well as the court of public opinion, Watts fell in love for the first time.“This case destroyed her life,” Timko said. “It has left a long wake of trouble.”