staff article:

CLEVELAND, Ohio-Brittany Watts (pictured),  a 33-year-old Black woman from Warren, Ohio who miscarried at some 22 weeks of pregnancy and was charged by the city with felony corpse abuse but subsequently  escaped an indictment by a Trumbull County grand jury will attend President Biden's State of the Union on Thurs., March 7 in Washington, D.C. Her mother, Annette Watts, will also attend, according to a press release.

Warren is a small city some 59 miles southeast of Cleveland that is roughly 28 percent Black.

Watts is the guest of 11th Congregational District Congresswoman Shontel Brown, a Warrensville Hts Democrat,  and her mother the guest of Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, a Columbus Democrat. Both announced the news in separate press releases.

Rep Brown spoke on the House floor on Wednesday on the need to pass the Women's Health Protection Act, which would establish a nationwide right to the full range of reproductive care: abortion, contraception, family planning, miscarriage management, IVF and more.That proposed legislation has stalled in Congress as Republicans push for a federal law that bans abortion after 15 weeks, all while campaigning for votes from women across the country as the 2024 presidential election nears and Republicans fight to regain control of the U.S. Senate and the White House in November.

The grand jury issued a no bill last year relative to Watts, which meant no criminal charges in the since dismissed case, a case that drew national attention and angered women's rights groups in Ohio like Women's March Cleveland, the largest grassroots women's rights activist group in Northeast, Ohio.

Women's March Cleveland had called for the felony charge to be immediately dismissed, saying the charge at issue was racist and that Watts was purportedly being targeted by police and prosecutors because she is Black, and for political reasons.

"This case has racial implications for sure and we are pleased that the grand jury saw through the racism as we continue to be concerned about racist and malicious prosecutions of Black pregnant women in Ohio," said Women's March Cleveland head organizer Kathy Wray Coleman after a grand jury declined to indict Watts, Coleman a longtime Black Cleveland activist, digital journalist and community organizer.

The so-called facts of the case are murky at best, Coleman said.

Watts went to the hospital before she miscarried and was later released in spite of pregnancy complications determined by doctors, who said the fetus could not survive outside of the womb.

Prosecutors and police said Britanny Watts attempted to plunge the toilet after her miscarriage. A judge ordered a bind-over of the case to felony court and prosecutors submitted the case to a Trumbull, County grand jury, obviously to no avail.

Research reveals that Black women and girls who miscarry in Ohio and elsewhere who discard a fetus are prosecuted at a higher rate than similarly situated White women and girls.

Ohio voters passed Issue 1 in November, a statewide measure pushed by Democrats and activist women's rights groups like Women's March Cleveland and aggressively opposed by key Republican leaders in the state that codified the legal right to abortion and other reproductive rights for Ohio women in the Ohio Constitution.

Dr. George Sterbenz, a forensic pathologist, said in a hearing that  there was no no injury to the fetus and said Watts’ fetus died before going through the birth canal. He added that Watts’ medical records showed she visited the hospital twice before the birth.

“This fetus was going to be non-viable,” said Sterbenz. “It was going to be non-viable because she had premature ruptured membranes — her water had broken early — and the fetus was too young to be delivered.”

Police and prosecutors say Watts was being prosecuted not for miscarrying but for allegedly abusing a corpse after miscarriage, though doctors say that it was a premature fetus.

Watt's' attorney said her Black client was being treated unfairly for something that has become routine.

“This 33-year-old girl, with no criminal record, is demonized for something that goes on every day,” said Traci Timko, Watts’ defense attorney before the case went to the county grand jury.

Tommy's National Centre for Miscarriage Research published research in 2021 showing that Black women had a 43% increased risk of miscarriage compared to White women.

Coleman said that "instead of singling out pregnant Black women in Ohio like Britanny Watts who miscarry due to no fought of their own for malicious and selective  prosecutions authorities should address disparities relative to Black women who face disproportionate complications during pregnancy, including higher miscarriage rates, and even death."

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Black women are three times more likely to die during pregnancy than White women.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor

SELMA, Alabama– Vice President Kamala Harris (pictured) called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza on Sun., March 3 during her speech in Selma, Ala on the Edmond Pettus Bridge at an event commemorating the 59th anniversary of the historic "Bloody Sunday" march.

Former President Donald Trump

Staff article-By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor

WASHINGTON, D.C.- Former President Donald Trump can remain on the Colorado ballot, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday in a unanimous and unprecedented decision that has a broad reaching effect for other states.

Congress and not the states has the power to keep a federal candidate off a state presidential ballot by framing legislation under the anti-insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment, the court ruled in reversing the decision by the Colorado Supreme Court.

"We conclude that states may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office," the court's opinion says. "But states have no power under the Constitution to enforce Sections 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the presidency."

The ruling, which is binding on all states, is a win for the GOP and the  Trump campaign as Super Tuesday, where some 16 states have primary elections,  is just a day away and the November presidential election nears.

Ohio's primary election is March 19. Trump won Ohio in 2016 and in 2020, and he went on to win the presidency in 2016 over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, but lost it to President Biden in 2020.

Trump had been booted from the Colorado, Maine and Illinois ballots with state officials arguing in the three states that trended Democratic in the last several presidential elections that he engaged in insurrection in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election that President Joe Biden won and that such behavior disqualify's him from seeking the presidency for a third time. Multiple other states were also pushing to keep the former president off their respective 2024 ballots. The Colorado, Maine and Illinois cases were on hold pending the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The case began at the state court level in Colorado and made its way all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, an indication, say sources, that the 2024 presidential race will be highly heated in the least.

And while the Supreme Court's celebrated ruling keeps Trump on the ballot it does not address whether or not he is an insurrectionist.

A state Colorado court ruled that Trump engaged in insurrection via the Jan 6 Capitol riot, which disqualify's him from the state primary ballot, and the state Supreme Court of Colorado ultimately agreed.

In reversing the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling this week the U.S. Supreme Court’s nine justices, via Monday's decision, agreed with the former president that a state cannot remove a federal candidate from its ballot under the 14th Amendment's insurrection ban. That posture, say pundits, strays from the point the Colorado courts tried to forcefully make by saying Trump was in no way qualified to be on the state ballot because of his role in the Jan 6 Capitol riot.

"A majority of the court holds that President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution," the Colorado Supreme Court's since reversed ruling says. "Because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot.”

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump's campaign, blasted the Colorado ruling, saying Trump has never been charged with insurrection relative to the Jan 6 Capitol riot, much less convicted.

“Unsurprisingly, the all-Democrat appointed Colorado Supreme Court has ruled against President Trump, supporting a Soros-funded, left-wing group’s scheme to interfere in an election on behalf of crooked Joe Biden by removing President Trump’s name from the ballot and eliminating the rights of Colorado voters to vote for the candidate of their choice," Cheung said in a statement after the Colorado Supreme Court ruling and before the appeal was heard by the nation's top court.

He added then that "we have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these un-American lawsuits." And that optimism proved true.

The Colorado Republican Party had also joined in, filing an appeal and asking the US Supreme Court to hear the case and reverse the Colorado Supreme Court decision.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com

By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, associate publisher, Coleman is a Black Cleveland activist and journalist who trained at the Call and Post newspaper for 17 years. Tel: (216) 659-0473 Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.