Orangeburg County woman speaks out after charge over 2023 miscarriage dropped

ORANGEBURG, S.C. (WIS) - After experiencing a miscarriage and being arrested last year, an Orangeburg County woman is speaking out now that her charge has been dropped.

She wants other women who may be in similar situations to know they are not alone, and it’s okay to ask for help.

Amari Marsh, 23, was arrested and charged with homicide by child abuse in March 2023 after losing her pregnancy.

“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 , 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.

After the recent decision from the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned Roe vs. Wade, taking away women’s long-held constitutional right to have an abortion, more cases of women being charged with crimes related to losing a pregnancy.

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.

Sumpter said these cases are unfortunately more common than people think.

“Doctors are afraid to counsel young women, and it‘s leading up to these unfortunate events where we’re losing precious lives, women and children,” she said. “We all need to take a look at this, and we all need to realize that things that have been said were going to happen that we didn’t think would happen have happened, and they can happen again.”

Sumpter also said that this case exposes health disparities for women of color. Race played a role in her treatment at the hospital, she argued.

“Who treats somebody like that?” she said. “Who is treated that way? Who is denied an opportunity to see their loved one? Who is denied an opportunity to have a simple explanation of what is going on with their bodies? What we’re going to do next? ... None of that happened.”

According to the Women’s Rights and Empowerment Network, Black women in South Carolina are 67 percent more likely than white women to experience pregnancy-related death.

The case has drawn attention from both abortion rights groups and anti-abortion groups.

“It’s been so many times where I just wanted to give up because of what people said about me, because how people felt about me, the rumors that were going around,” Marsh said, fighting back tears. “It was hard getting through a lot of that.”

As she navigates the grieving process, Marsh is moving forward, with aspirations to attend medical school.

“I’m just taking it one step at a time, one minute at a time, one day at a time,” she said.

The First Circuit Solicitor’s Office did not get involved until after the charges were brought, and presented the evidence to a grand jury.

First Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe, a Democrat, said he respects and agrees with their decision.

Pascoe said that this case had nothing to do with the recent Dobbs decision or reproductive rights.

The arresting agency, the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office, did not respond to a request for comment.

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