By the time Brittany Watts miscarried in the bathroom of her home in Warren, Ohio, she had visited and left the hospital twice without receiving treatment. After waiting for eight hours at Mercy Health-St Joseph’s Hospital on 20 September, the 33-year-old left for the second time, inadvertently setting in motion a national debate over the felony charges that were brought against her two days later when she returned to the facility no longer pregnant.
When Ms Watts first consulted healthcare providers about her vaginal bleeding, she was told that her water had broken prematurely and the fetus she was carrying was unviable. Still, doctors had to grapple with the complex legalities of how to proceed with her 22-week pregnancy in a state with strict abortion laws.
