On March 20 in rural Georgia, an ambulance responded to an early morning 911 name about an unconscious, bleeding lady at an condo. When first responders arrived, they decided that she’d had a miscarriage. That was solely the beginning of her ordeal.
Selena Maria Chandler-Scott was transported to an area hospital, however a witness reported that Scott had positioned the fetal stays in a dumpster. When police investigated, they recovered the stays, and Scott was charged with concealing the demise of one other individual and abandoning a lifeless physique. The fees have been in the end dropped; an post-mortem decided she‘d had a “pure miscarriage“ at round 19 weeks and the fetus was non-viable.
Nonetheless, Scott’s arrest comes at a time when a rising variety of ladies are dealing with pregnancy-related prosecutions wherein the fetus is handled as an individual with authorized rights. And her expertise raises troubling questions on miscarriages that occur in states with strict abortion legal guidelines, ladies’s well being advocates say. How ought to stays be disposed of? And who will get to determine?
Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, the Residing Infants Equity and Equality (LIFE) Act, offers any fetus with a heartbeat authorized recognition beneath the regulation.
Although the push for “fetal personhood” provisions like this one predates the 2022 Dobbs choice that overturned Roe v. Wade, specialists say it has intensified since.
Roughly two dozen personhood payments have been launched within the first three months of this yr, in response to the Guttmacher Insitute, a analysis group that helps reproductive rights.
Jill Wieber Lens, a professor on the College of Iowa Faculty of Regulation and knowledgeable on stillbirth and being pregnant loss, sees wider implications in Chandler-Scott’s arrest. Analysis reveals that 10-20 p.c of recognized pregnancies finish in miscarriage, most frequently within the first trimester.
“If what comes out of you in a miscarriage is a lifeless human physique, and you may’t abandon that, you’ll be able to’t put that within the trash, you’ll be able to’t flush it down the bathroom,” Lens mentioned, “most individuals experiencing miscarriage are additionally apparently committing crimes in Georgia.”
Authorized specialists have drawn comparisons between Chandler-Scott’s arrest and that of Brittany Watts, a then 34-year-old lady in Warren, Ohio, who was charged with abuse of a corpse after her miscarriage in 2023, although the costs have been later dropped.
In January, she filed a lawsuit towards the town and hospital the place she sought care. Neither the hospital nor the police responded to requests for remark, however the hospital filed a response in courtroom, denying wrongdoing. The case remains to be pending.
In an interview final yr, Watts mentioned she feared an identical arrest might occur once more. “Because the outdated saying goes, ‘Historical past repeats itself,’” Watts mentioned. “I don’t need it to occur on this case.”
Advocates say the variety of pregnant folks dealing with felony fees for conduct linked to being pregnant rose after Dobbs. No less than 210 ladies have been charged within the yr that adopted, in response to a 2024 report from Being pregnant Justice, a reproductive rights group.
Ladies of colour, lower-income ladies and ladies fighting substance use are notably susceptible in interactions with authorities, advocates say.
Dana Sussman, senior vp of Being pregnant Justice, mentioned she was glad to listen to the costs towards Chandler-Scott have been dropped. “On the one hand, that is terrific information,” she mentioned. However “it doesn’t undo the very actual hurt and devastation fees like these deliver within the first place.”
Chandler-Scott’s arrest is only one instance of how Georgia is harming ladies’s well being and lives, mentioned Monica Simpson, govt director of SisterSong, an Atlanta-based reproductive justice group that has challenged the state’s abortion ban in courtroom. Final yr, Amber Thurman died after she reportedly needed to wait almost a day for surgical procedure that specialists mentioned might have saved her life.
“The image that’s being painted in Georgia is a really grim one,” Simpson mentioned. “Georgians will not be asking for extra restrictions, or extra surveillance. We’re truly asking to have extra well being care, to have extra entry.”
Georgia not too long ago held a listening to on a personhood invoice that will have allowed individuals who finish their pregnancies to be charged with homicide. “We now have turned Roe vs. Wade round. Let’s go forward and simply deliver again life to the unborn,” Rep. Emory Dunahoo, a Republican, advised an NBC affiliate. The invoice died this week with no vote.
Sally Harrell, a Democratic state Senator from Atlanta, spoke publicly from the state capitol this week about Chandler-Scott’s arrest.
“This case demonstrates the idiocy of fetal personhood,” she mentioned, including, “That is terrifying for ladies of reproductive age in Georgia.”
The Tift County district legal professional’s workplace, which dealt with Chandler-Scott’s case, didn’t reply an inventory of detailed questions on it from NBC Information and referred as an alternative to a press launch concerning the fees being dismissed.
In that launch, District Lawyer Patrick Warren mentioned his workplace had decided that the fetus had not been born alive and pursuing the case towards Chandler-Scott was “not within the curiosity of justice.”
The workplace referred further questions concerning the case to the police division, which didn’t reply.
An individual answering a contact listed for Chandler-Scott mentioned it was not her quantity. A relative didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
“In these delicate moments of her life, it has brought about not solely her however her household emotional, monetary and psychological stress,” an internet fundraiser for Chandler-Scott states.
Warren acknowledged in his press launch that some locally could be sad along with his choice to drop the costs.
“This case is heartbreaking and emotionally tough for everybody concerned,” he mentioned, “however our choice have to be grounded in regulation — not emotion or hypothesis.”
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