On March 20, Selena Chandler-Scott of Tift County, Georgia, was discovered unconscious and bleeding close to her house complicated. First responders (and later, docs at a close-by hospital) decided she’d had a miscarriage at roughly 19 weeks gestational age.
However when a witness knowledgeable regulation enforcement that they’d seen Chandler-Scott eliminate the remains of her miscarriage in a close-by dumpster, she was charged with concealing a loss of life and abandonment of a lifeless physique… even supposing there aren’t any legal guidelines within the state of Georgia that tackle what to do with the stays of a miscarriage.
Whereas the charges were ultimately dropped, with Tift County District Legal professional Patrick Warren noting that prosecution was “not legally sustainable,” the case has sparked dialogue round a subject that, statistically, will have an effect on up to 20% of pregnancies: what does one do with the stays of a miscarriage.
TikTok creator Liv Goldi lately highlighted the problem in a video noting that the suggestion she stored listening to — that you just name an ambulance to go to the hospital. A suggestion she wished to dispel as each impractical and privileged.
“How do you assume you do away with the stays after a miscarriage?” she asks. “I’m going to inform you: you miscarry into a bathroom.”
She goes on to say that it will typically appear to be a big blood clot. You may name a health care provider, who can verify that’s the case through a photograph. Both manner: they’ll in all probability inform you to flush the bathroom and encourage you to come back in for care within the coming days.
“There aren’t any authorized methods you’re speculated to eliminate the miscarriage,” she continues. “There aren’t any authorized tips for that. There isn’t any authorized, proper method to do it. Secondly, what an astoundingly privileged take.”
She notes that an ambulance or ER go to alone can run a whole lot and even hundreds of {dollars}.
“As a former ER nurse,” replies one commenter, “There’s nothing we are able to do for a miscarriage. Until you might be profusely bleeding there is no such thing as a level in coming in. It is a waste of time.”
“I’m a girls’s well being supplier THIS IS CORRECT,” says one other.
“My docs instructed me to flush it or throw it within the trash!” affords a 3rd. “You solely have to go to the ER if you’re hemorrhaging.”
Certainly, whereas there are some legal guidelines on the books about what should be achieved with fetal remains after an abortion, legal guidelines about what to do with fetal or embryonic tissue after a miscarriage at residence don’t at present exist. Most miscarriages happen earlier than a layperson may possible distinguish uterine tissue from fetal tissue and, as such, are sometimes flushed down the bathroom. Whereas the stays of Chandler-Scott’s miscarriage would possible have been identifiable as such, that doesn’t change the truth that nothing in current regulation dictates that she’d achieved something unlawful or in any other case improper. She was not compelled to take explicit steps in disposing of the stays.
Chandler-Scott will not be the primary girl to be charged below comparable legal guidelines. In 2023, Brittany Watts of Ohio was charged with abuse of a corpse after a miscarriage at residence. A grand jury finally declined to indict her, and prison fees have been dropped.
Nevertheless, with the rise of “fetal personhood” laws, which search to grant full authorized rights to zygotes, embryos, and fetuses — no matter whether or not they can dwell exterior of a uterus — the extent of those legal guidelines might shift the authorized panorama from IVF to miscarriage. To date, legal guidelines have favored these having miscarriages. However each failed case offers new insights for many who search to vary how the legal guidelines are interpreted transferring ahead.
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