The arrest of the woman after a miscarriage in Georgia attracts fear and anger

On March 20 in rural Georgia, an ambulance responded to a call early on 911 about an unconscious rare woman in an apartment. When the first speakers arrived, they determined that she had made a miscarriage. It was only the start of his ordeal.

Selena Maria Chandler-Scott was transported to a local hospital, but a witness reported that Scott had placed the fetal remains in a dumpster. When the police investigated, they recovered the remains and Scott was accused of having hidden the death of another person and of abandoning a corpse. The accusations were finally lowered; An autopsy determined that she had a “natural miscarriage” around 19 weeks and the fetus was not viable.

However, Scott’s arrest arrives at a time when a growing number of women face prosecution related to pregnancy in which The fetus is treated as a person with legal rights. And his experience raises disturbing questions about the false layers that occur in states with strict abortion, according to women’s health defenders. How should the leftovers be eliminated? And who can decide?

The prohibition of abortion of six weeks of Georgia, the law on equity and equality (life) of living infants, provides any fetus with legal recognition of heart rate under the law.

Although the push of the provisions of “fetal personality” as this is prior to the decision of Dobbs 2022 which canceled ROE c. Wade, experts say he has since intensified.

About two dozen Personality bills were introduced in the first three months of this year, according to the Guttmacher Insit, a research organization that supports reproductive rights.

Jill Wieber Lens, Professor at the University of Iowa College of Law and expert in mortinity and loss of pregnancy, sees wider implications in the arrest of Chandler-Scott. Research shows that 10 to 20% of known pregnancies end in a miscarriage, most often in the first trimester.

“If what comes out of you in a miscarriage is a dead human body, and you cannot abandon this, you cannot put this in the trash, you cannot throw it in the toilet,” said Lens, “most people who undergo a miscarriage also commit crimes in Georgia.”

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Legal experts have Comparisons between the arrest of Chandler-Scott and that of Brittany Watts, a 34-year-old woman in Warren, Ohio, who was accused of abuse of a corpse after his miscarriage in 2023, although the charges were then abandoned.

In January, she filed a complaint against the city and the hospital where she asked for care. Neither the hospital nor the police responded to requests for comments, but the hospital submitted a response to court, denying the reprehensible acts. The case is still pending.

In an interview last year, Watts said that she feared that a similar arrest will not happen again. “As the old adage says,” history repeats itself “,” said Watts. “I don’t want this to happen in this case.”

Defenders say that the number of pregnant people faced with criminal accusations for driving linked to pregnancy increased after Dobbs. At least 210 women were charged in the year, according to a 2024 report from Pregnancy Justice, a reproductive rights group.

Women of colored, low -income women and women in the use of substances are particularly vulnerable in interactions with the authorities, according to defenders.

Dana Sussman, main vice-president of pregnancy justice, said she was happy to learn that Chandler-Scott had been abandoned. “On the one hand, it’s great news,” she said. But “that does not defeat very real damage and devastation charges like these bring first.”

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Arrest of Chandler-Scott is just one example of how Georgia harms the health and life of women, said Monica Simpson, executive director of Sistersong, an organization of reproductive justice based in Atlanta which disputed the prohibition of state abortion before the court. Last year, Amber Thurman died after having had to wait almost a day for surgery which, according to experts, could have saved her life.

“The painting that is painted in Georgia is very dark,” said Simpson. “Georgians are not asking for more restrictions or more surveillance. We actually ask to have more health care, to have more access. ”

Georgia recently held an audience on a personality bill that would have enabled people who will end their pregnancy to be accused of murder. “We have transformed Roe against Wade. Let’s go and simply put life with the child,” said representative Emory Dunahoo, a republican, to a subsidiary of NBC. The bill died this week without a vote.

Sally Harrell, a senator from the Democratic State of Atlanta, spoke publicly about the State Capitol this week about the arrest of Chandler-Scott.

“This case demonstrates the idiocy of the fetal personality,” she said, adding: “It is terrifying for women of reproductive age in Georgia.”

The TIFT County District Prosecutor’s Office, which has dealt with the case of Chandler-Scott, did not answer a list of detailed questions on this subject of NBC News and rather referred to a press release concerning the charges rejected.

In this press release, the district prosecutor, Patrick Warren, said that his office had determined that the fetus was not born alive and that the case against Chandler-Scott was “not in the interest of justice”.

The office returned additional questions to the case to the police service, which did not answer.

A person responding to a listed contact for Chandler-Scott said it was not his number. A parent did not immediately respond to requests for comments.

“In these sensitive moments of her life, it caused it not only to her, but her emotional, financial and mental family,” said online fundraising for Chandler-Scott.

Warren acknowledged in his press release that some members of the community could be unhappy with his decision to abolish the accusations.

“This case is heartbreaking and emotionally difficult for all those involved,” he said, “but our decision must be based on law-not emotion or speculation.”