Amari Marsh had just finished her junior year at South Carolina State University in May 2023 when she received a text message from a law enforcement officer.
“Sorry it has taken this long for paperwork to come back,” the officer wrote. “But I finally have the final report, and wanted to see if you and your boyfriend could meet me Wednesday afternoon for a follow up?”
Marsh understood that the report was related to a pregnancy loss she’d experienced that March, she said. During her second trimester, Marsh said, she unexpectedly gave birth in the middle of the night while on a toilet in her off-campus apartment. She remembered screaming and panicking and said the bathroom was covered in blood.
“I couldn’t breathe,” said Marsh, now 23.
The next day, when Marsh woke up in the hospital, she said, a law enforcement officer asked her questions. Then, a few weeks later, she said, she received a call saying she could collect her daughter’s ashes.
At that point, she said, she didn’t know she was being criminally investigated. Yet three months after her loss, Marsh was charged with murder/homicide by child abuse, law enforcement records show. She spent 22 days at the Orangeburg-Calhoun Regional Detention Center, where she was initially held without bond, facing 20 years to life in prison.
Years ago my stepmother miscarried my brother’s fraternal twin in the toilet, and the only reason she knew to scoop it out of the toilet was because she was a nurse.
Nobody teaches women this is what should be done (so the tissue can be tested to check for reasons behind the miscarriage).
Blaming women for not doing it is as stupid as jailing women for it happening in the first place.
V O T E like your lives depend on it, because they do.
The arrest warrant alleges that not moving the infant from the toilet at the urging of the dispatcher was ultimately “a proximate cause of her daughter’s death.” The warrant also cites as the cause of death “respiratory complications” due to a premature delivery stemming from a maternal chlamydia infection. Marsh said she was unaware of the infection until after the pregnancy loss.
This is another thing. Chlamydia is often asymptomatic, and she surely didn’t contact that all by herself. But around where I live, simply don’t get tested, especially men, and while knowing they have symptoms. But this is the South and that makes you a “removed” if you’re a woman. Idk why men don’t get tested, since multiple partners makes a man “the man.”
I’ve not had a partner in two years. I get tested every year, regardless.
I’ve not had a partner in two years. I get tested every year, regardless.
Why?
Because retroviruses. Eta: and now that I think about it, why not help destigmatize it?
Retroviruses? I don’t follow.
I don’t either. Retroviruses are viruses that inject their RNA into a cell where the genome is converted to DNA.
No clue what that has to do with getting tested annually regardless of exposure.
iirc retroviruses can take longer to be detectable. 2 years is probably fine but after a 3rd year would be a little much.
It was never about saving lives, but criminalizing women. This shows it. Going through a miscarriage is hard enough, to now worry about being interrogated and arrested? I hope Harris gets in and can fix this mess.
I think Harris has a good chance. People are fed up with the orange pumpkin man, as they should be.
Wtf can she go north at avoid jail? This is ridiculous. No way would I let my daughter or sister near this.
The concept of an underground railroad for women who have miscarriages is horrific. And possibly necessary.
That might just be the imagery that needs to be pushed more often to open the eyes of some people.
That’s an older article too boot.
While this prosecution was completely fucked up and was 100% linked to the criminalisation of abortion (and therefore miscarriages and pregnancy in general), the issue was that following the traumatic premature birth she didn’t immediately remove the baby from the toilet
Moving north wouldn’t have helped on paper, as the alleged crime of letting your baby drown is still illegal
That said, possibly a more progressive state might have had the good sense to not prosecute or even treat this as a criminal matter. On the other hand, the DA where this happened was a Democrat according to the article
A grand jury declined to indict her, so it ended ‘okay’, apart from all the unnecessary additional horrific trauma inflicted on a grieving mother and being a harrowing sign of dark repressive times
It ended OK after three weeks behind bars accused of murder? That’s not an OK end unless people get fired and she gets paid.
Right, I was trying to imply that it wasn’t really okay, hence the ‘okay’ in inverted commas and stuff - this obviously isn’t okay
Thankfully her peers had some sense. DA deserves kick to face for stress caused on her. Like go after dangerous people looking to harm others not this.
See? If Trump is elected, women won’t “Be thinking about abortion”
Now we know why: because they’ll be in jail!
Pretty sure a lot more of them will be thinking about homicide! But not of the unborn babies…
