Leftists rally with glee after activist woman who allegedly tried to flush stillborn baby down toilet not indicted

Leftists across the country are rallying both literally and figuratively behind an Ohio woman who avoided a grand jury indictment even after she allegedly attempted to flush her stillborn child down the toilet and then just went about "her day."

On Thursday, a grand jury in Trumbull County declined to indict 34-year-old Brittany Watts for felony abuse of a corpse, a crime that carries a sentence of a year in prison and a $2,500 fine.

The accusations against Watts are gut-wrenching. According to reports, Watts had gone to a Catholic hospital in her hometown of of Warren, Ohio, about an hour southeast of Cleveland, multiple times in the days leading up to her miscarriage. On one occasion, a doctor allegedly told her that her unborn child, who was then 22 weeks along, was not viable and advised her to have labor induced to avoid "significant risk" of death.

Though the date has not been reported, at some point, Watts miscarried in a toilet. Reports indicate that Watts then scooped at least some of her stillborn child's remains out of the toilet and placed them outside near her garage. A nurse later reported to police that Watts had placed the baby in a "bucket," court documents said.

Yet some of the baby's remains remained in the toilet, and Watts allegedly attempted to flush them away. She apparently didn't succeed because those remains reportedly ended up clogging the toilet. Watts then allegedly left those remains there to go to a previously scheduled hair appointment.

"The issue isn’t how the child died, when the child died," prosecutor Lewis Guarnieri argued in court. "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."

Even Watts and her attorney, Traci Timko, have had to acknowledge the solemn nature of the situation.

"I am grieving the loss of my baby," Watts later told the Washington Post. "I feel anger, frustration and, at times, shameful."

"No matter how shocking or disturbing it may sound when presented in a public forum, it is simply the devastating reality of miscarriage," Timko said in a statement.

Despite Watts' seemingly apathetic treatment of her baby, the grand jury decided not to indict her, prompting leftists to erupt with glee. In fact, activists had already planned a "We Stand with Brittany!" rally in the courthouse square. After the decision not to indict, the group of 150 supporters — carrying signs that claimed the prosecutors had engaged in "abuse of power" and that the "real crimes" against Watts were "sexism," "racism," and "political extremism" — were able to turn the event into a victory celebration.

Whether Watts has always been an activist or has just become one after the miscarriage, she told rally attendees that she felt compelled to join their "fight." "I want to thank my community — Warren. Warren, Ohio," she said, smiling. "I was born here. I was raised here. I graduated high school here, and I’m going to continue to stay here because I have to continue to fight."

She has also expressed hope that her case will be an "impetus to change," her lawyer claimed.

Other leftist groups are standing in solidarity with Watts, whom they view as another black, female victim of systemic injustice. "What happened to Brittany Watts is a grave example of how Black women and their bodies face legal threats simply for existing," said Dr. Regina Davis Moss, the president and CEO of Our Own Voice, a racially minded, pro-abortion organization. "Her story is one that is becoming alarmingly common: in states with abortion restrictions, Black women, girls, and gender-expansive people are being surveilled, arrested, prosecuted and punished for pregnancy loss."

Sarah Jones, a writer for New York magazine's Intelligencer outlet, claimed that by treating Watts' stillborn baby as a person, prosecutors were promoting a "pernicious ideology" that denied "Watts’s own personhood." "When agents of the law treat the fetus as a person — an infant or a child, in the words of the nurse and the prosecutor — the woman bearing it becomes something else. She is not quite human; she is a mere vessel."

Jones then quoted Watts referring to her stillborn baby as a "baby."

Timko claimed that the grand jury's decision was "justice."

"While Brittany’s fight for freedom is over, she stands with women everywhere and will use her story and experience to educate and push for legislation to ensure no other woman in the State of Ohio will have to put healing from grief and trauma on a back burner to fight for her freedom and reputation," she said.

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