A West Virginia prosecutors association said it needs to make it “abundantly clear” that it does not intend to recommend its members prosecute women in the state for how they handle their miscarriages.
In a statement Monday, the West Virginia Prosecuting Attorneys Association said the group needed to set the record straight on those concerns, which began circulating in recent weeks after one of the state’s county prosecutors told media outlets he’d heard rumblings about such charges from his counterparts in other counties.
“The West Virginia Prosecuting Attorneys Association wishes to clarify that recent public statements made regarding this subject do not reflect the consensus, official position or legal interpretation of the association, its officers, board members or members of its Legislative Committee,” the statement said.
The organization’s president, Luke Furbee, in an interview Monday clarified that this was the view of the group’s leadership.
But county prosecutors in West Virginia are elected by voters and presumably could act on their own to decide charges.
Late last month, Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney Tom Truman told WVNS 59News that a number of the state’s prosecuting attorneys had told him they were open to charging women who miscarry and dispose of their own fetal remains such as by flushing or burying them.
The charges would be filed under a state law related to the disposal of human remains, Truman said, noting he wouldn’t be willing to proceed with such prosecution. While abortion is heavily restricted in West Virginia, state law says women cannot be criminally charged for their own abortions.
The WVPAA’s statement, which doesn’t reference Truman directly, says such charges were never “widely discussed” among West Virginia prosecutors and that women do not need to protect themselves by calling 911 or other officials to report their miscarriages, as Truman suggested.
“The WVPAA wants to make abundantly clear that any assertion that individuals who experience the unfortunate event of a miscarriage in West Virginia should be notifying law enforcement or face potential criminal prosecution is incorrect and not supported by West Virginia law,” the WVPAA said.
WV Free, a reproductive rights group in the state, thanked the group for clearing up the confusion.
“Having a miscarriage is not criminal!” WV Free executive director Margaret Chapman Pomponio said in a statement, praising the WVPAA for “the crystal-clear statement.”
The Raleigh County government did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Truman or other officials about the WVPAA’s response to his warning.
When he spoke to local media late last month and later to CNN, Truman said his concerns were based on conversations he’d had with his fellow prosecuting attorneys and shared specific details about what could be factored into charges.
“The kind of criminal jeopardy you face is going to depend on a lot of factors,” Truman told WVNS 59News. “What was your intent? What did you do? How late were you in your pregnancy? Were you trying to hide something, were you just so emotionally distraught you couldn’t do anything else?”
These are real risks following the fall of Roe v. Wade, he told CNN.
“It’s a different world now, and there’s a lot of discretion that prosecutors have, and some of them have agendas where they would like to make you an example,” he said.
It wouldn’t be the first time a woman was criminally charged in connection with her miscarriage. In 2023, an Ohio woman was charged with abuse of a corpse after she flushed the fetal remains from her miscarriage at 21 weeks of pregnancy. And in April, a Georgia woman was arrested for allegedly throwing away fetal remains from her miscarriage. She spent two nights in jail before being released on bail.