Georgia Cops Drop Charges Against 24-Year-Old Who Miscarried After Massive Public Pressure

“This doesn’t undo the trauma [she] faced of being arrested after a tragic medical emergency,” the organization Pregnancy Justice said in a statement.

By Kylie Cheung | April 4, 2025 | 4:15pm

Photo: Getty Images Abortion Politics

Georgia Cops Drop Charges Against 24-Year-Old Who Miscarried After Massive Public Pressure

Police in Georgia have dropped criminal charges against a 24-year-old woman over her miscarriage and how she disposed of fetal remains. (Jezebel is choosing not to publish the woman’s name.) At the end of last month, the Tift County Sheriff’s Office charged her with “concealing the death of another person” and “abandonment of a dead body” after police recovered fetal remains from a dumpster near her apartment complex, following an anonymous tip. (Friendly reminder: Do not ever talk to police about the outcomes of other people’s or your own pregnancies and take all precautions to protect your medical privacy.) They found the woman bleeding and unconscious outside her building, but instead of trying to help her, they arrested and jailed her.

Police went so far as to order an autopsy on the remains from the woman’s miscarriage. The county coroner uncovered “no signs of injury or trauma, and the baby never took a breath,” confirming that a miscarriage had occurred at about 19 weeks. But until Friday, the charges against her stood. The “concealing the death of another person” charge came with up to 10 years in prison in Georgia, while the “abandonment of a dead body” charge came with up to three. But about one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, and there are no legal standards or universal guidelines on how people should dispose of fetal remains.

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Despite inflicting unthinkable trauma on a young woman in the wake of her medical emergency, Tift County District Attorney Patrick Warren does not sound especially sorry. If anything, his statement announcing that the charges had been dropped seemed more apologetic to the sadistic people who wanted to see the 24-year-old punished.

“After thorough examination of the facts and the law, my office has determined that continuing prosecution is not legally sustainable and not in the interest of justice. This case is heartbreaking and emotionally difficult for everyone involved, but our decision must be grounded in law, not emotion or speculation,” Warren’s statement begins. However “emotionally difficult” this might have been for “everyone involved,” only one person was found bleeding and unconscious outside their home and then jailed. Warren then claims that “law enforcement acted in good faith and responded to a very difficult and emotional situation.”

Warren conceded that this “case highlights the importance of careful review and thoughtful decision-making, particularly in sensitive situations like pregnancy loss.” But the rest of his statement seems to blame and condemn the young woman for not handling a miscarriage in a manner he found appropriate: “I do not condone the way the remains were handled, and I understand that her actions were distressing to many,” he said, adding, “While some may feel my decision excuses [her] conduct, justice must be based on law, not emotion.” And, also concerning, Warren suggested he’s open to reopening the case against the 24-year-old “if additional information or incriminating evidence becomes available.”

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The organization Pregnancy Justice, which represents pregnant people who face criminal charges for the outcomes of their pregnancies, celebrated the withdrawal of the criminal charges, but stressed that “this doesn’t undo the trauma that [she] faced of being arrested after a tragic medical emergency.” Their statement continues, “We know there is no one-size-fits-all way to handle fetal remains in these situations—in fact, doctors often tell women to simply miscarry at home.” That is precisely what happened to Brittany Watts, an Ohio woman who faced a felony charge for having a stillbirth at 22 weeks after a hospital refused to offer her emergency abortion care for her nonviable, dangerous pregnancy in 2023.

“Pregnancy loss should never be criminalized,” their statement concludes.

The threat of facing criminal charges for a miscarriage, or how you do or don’t handle remains from a miscarriage, has always existed, and it’s increased as abortion bans shroud pregnancy loss in criminal suspicion. Over the last decade, individuals across the country have faced charges like gross abuse of a corpse, concealing a dead body, or even child endangerment and involuntary manslaughter for pregnancy loss or “improper” disposal of miscarriage remains. (“You don’t need an abortion ban to criminalize pregnancy,” Pregnancy Justice’s executive vice president, Dana Sussman, previously told Jezebel.) In the first year post-Dobbs alone, Pregnancy Justice recorded more than 200 people arrested over pregnancy-related criminal charges—the most in a single year period since the organization has been tracking this data.

Georgia currently enforces a six-week abortion ban; over the last month, the legislature has been weighing a bill that would recognize having an abortion as homicide, threatening to criminalize abortion patients. And all of this—jailing someone for a miscarriage, treating someone who has an abortion as a murderer—is in service of fetal personhood, the endgame of the anti-abortion movement.

You can donate to a legal support fund for the Georgia woman here.