Welcome to America’s dystopian hellscape, brought to you by Donald J. Trump, who overturned Roe. We’ve all read the stories of women dying after being turned down for proper medical care.
In this case, Amari Marsh, 23, was arrested and charged with homicide by child abuse last year after losing her pregnancy through a miscarriage. She spent a whopping 22 days in a South Carolina jail.
The charges have since been dropped, but her arrest never should have happened.
Wis10 reports:
“When I was initially arrested, I thought it was a joke,” she said in a Tuesday interview. “I genuinely thought it was a joke because I had never been in trouble in my life. As I was sitting there, I couldn’t do nothing but cry.”
She spent 22 days in the Orangeburg-Calhoun Regional Detention Center.
She is now cleared of the charge after a grand jury determined in August that there was not probable cause to move forward with the case.
Advocates said her case prioritizes the need for an increased emphasis on maternal health support, particularly for women of color, in South Carolina and around the country.
An arrest warrant said she failed to seek prenatal care and accused her of not rendering aid fast enough to the fetus that she miscarried.
But at the time, Marsh said she was not aware she was pregnant, was experiencing a normal menstrual cycle and was not showing.
“I don’t think any other woman should have to go through that,” she said. “I don’t think a woman should be accused of murder because of something that she doesn’t know happened to her body.”
Research shows that about one in 475 pregnancies are unnoticed until around 20 weeks. The Cleveland Clinic said about one in 2,500 pregnancies go unnoticed until delivery.
Her attorneys Zipporah Sumpter and Rep. Seth Rose, D-Richland, said an autopsy proved her pregnancy loss was likely caused by a medical condition she was suffering from.
“To charge this young woman with this on the heels of such a traumatic event is pretty outrageous and the autopsy, a simple autopsy would have cleared this up and it did clear it up,” Rose said.
Rose called out law enforcement the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office for its handling of the situation.
“Those that were involved in the decision to charge her with this need to answer for it,” he said.
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Research shows between June 2022 and June 2023 there were more than 200 cases in which a pregnant person faced criminal charges associated with pregnancy loss.
Trump is an adjudicated rapist with a long history of misogynistic behavior, but he insists he wants to be women’s protector, “whether they like it or not.” Ms. Marsh and many others like her need protection from Trump.
