The Indianapolis Star reported final week that, three days after the Supreme Courtroom struck down Roe v. Wade, a health care provider in Ohio who treats youngsters who’ve been abused referred to as an Indianapolis-based obstetrician-gynecologist to inform her in regards to the case of a 10-year-old affected person, a rape sufferer, who wanted an abortion.
Ohio handed a law in 2019 that made abortion unlawful round six weeks, when a fetal heartbeat will be detected. Hours after the Supreme Courtroom erased Roe, the Ohio legislation took impact. The woman was, at that time, six weeks and three days pregnant.
The Ohio physician requested the Indiana physician if there have been something they might do for the woman. She later was in a position to cross state strains to obtain an abortion underneath the Indiana physician’s care.
Whereas performing an abortion earlier than six weeks continues to be authorized in Indiana, lawmakers within the state will probably be assembly later this month to contemplate additional abortion restrictions. According to the Indianapolis Star, abortion suppliers within the state have been receiving extra calls from sufferers out-of-state requesting abortion companies.
Abortions carried out on sufferers youthful than age 15 within the nation are uncommon — in 2019, solely 0.2 % of reported abortions have been carried out on sufferers that younger, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As he retold the woman’s story Friday, Biden grew visibly upset. A ten-year-old woman, he stated, mustn’t “be compelled to offer beginning to a rapist’s little one.”
Biden’s concentrate on the kid got here shortly earlier than he signed an govt order to guard abortion rights within the wake of the Supreme Courtroom choice. The administration has confronted stress from different Democrats to do extra, however Biden acknowledged that his govt energy has limits.
The Supreme Courtroom’s ruling, he stated, was “horrible, excessive, and I believe so completely wrongheaded choice.”
He added that, in his view, the court docket’s majority is “taking part in quick and free with the details” in its opinion by misrepresenting the historical past of abortion rights in America.
“I can’t consider something as way more excessive as [the] court docket’s choice,” an emotional Biden stated.
Biden’s remarks on the 10-year-old’s case have been far completely different from Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), who targeted on the felony act, calling the sexual assault of the kid a “tragedy,” in accordance with the Cincinnati Enquirer, saying that what the state has on the market, “clearly, [is] a rapist.”
“We have now somebody who’s harmful and we now have somebody who ought to be picked up and locked up without end,” DeWine stated.
He didn’t, nevertheless, touch upon the Ohio legislation he signed that barred her from receiving an abortion within the state.
“This can be a horrible, horrible tragedy for a 10-year-old to be assaulted, for a 10-year-old to be raped,” DeWine stated Wednesday, in accordance with the Enquirer. “As a father and as a grandfather, it’s simply gut-wrenching to even give it some thought.”
The Ohio legislation was one in every of so-called set off bans that went into impact in a number of states instantly after the court docket struck down Roe.
On the each day briefing after Biden’s remarks, White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated the president mentioned the younger woman’s case “simply to indicate how excessive the choice on the Dobbs choice was and simply how excessive it’s now for the American public.”
“When you have got such a younger woman who has to hold out the kid of a rapist, that’s unacceptable,” Jean-Pierre stated. “This is the reason he’s calling for motion. This is the reason he’s attempting to do the whole lot that he can from his authorized authority that he has.”
Biden, Jean-Pierre stated, is “going to do the whole lot that he can to guard younger people who find themselves like this younger woman.”
“However on the similar time, he’s going to name it out and use his bully pulpit to make it clear of what’s taking place out there’s unacceptable,” she added.
The president, throughout his remarks Friday, additionally warned of a future during which Republicans in Congress would really feel emboldened to go a nationwide ban on abortion. Such a measure, he stated, wouldn’t develop into legislation underneath his watch as a result of he would veto it.
“We can not enable an out-of-control Supreme Courtroom, working along with extremist components of the Republican Occasion, to remove freedoms and our private autonomy,” he stated.
