Ohio adopted a strict abortion law, banning the procedure. When the parent, parents, or guardians of a 10-year-old sought an abortion, the child was rejected. According to doctors, she was six weeks and three days pregnant. She is now in Indiana, hoping to get an abortion before the law there changes. If she can’t get to the right state in time, she will be a 10- or 11-year-old mother. The story doesn’t say who fathered the child or what will happen to the baby if she carries it to full term.
I remembered seeing this case on Twitter, but couldn’t find the link. so I googled and found that there were many cases of children who had been impregnated. Often, the culprit was the mother’s boyfriend. The impregnated child was not protected by her mother. What happens to the children who become mothers? What happens to their child?
In about half our states, these child victims will no longer have the option of terminating a pregnancy that is the result of rape and/or incest.
As I googled, I was shocked to discover many cases of pregnant children. Most of their pregnancies were discovered too late to abort the baby. Who will care for it? Will the mother drop out of school?
In Missouri, an 11-year-old gave birth in a bathtub at home. Her mother was charged with endangering the welfare of a child. The father of the baby was a 17-year-old cousin.
In Florida, a 46-year-old man impregnated a 10-year-old girl, then fled to Haiti, where he was arrested by US marshals and returned for trial.
In Dallas, a man sexually abused his daughter (not his biological daughter) from age 7 to 13, when she became pregnant. He also abused her younger sister. The man got a jail sentence and the girls and baby were put in foster care.
In Marion, Indiana, a 10-year-old was impregnated by her mother’s boyfriend. He was sentenced to 160 years in prison.
In Spartanburg, South Carolina, a child was impregnated twice by her pastor. He was sentenced to prison.
In Knoxville, Tennessee, a man was convicted of impregnating a child twice, once when she was 10, again when she was 11. He began abusing her when she was 7.
A man in Maryville, Tennessee, was convicted of taping and impregnating an 11-year-old girl. Her condition was not discovered until she was eight months pregnant. When he was arrested, he was in Florida with a 9-year-old girl.
In Oklahoma, the family of a 12-year-old girl gave a baby shower for her and her rapist. He was arrested.
In Oklahoma, a 12-year-old girl was impregnated by a man twice her age and gave birth to his child. The girl’s mother was arrested and charged with child neglect.
In Abbeville, South Carolina, a 26-year-old man was arrested for raping and impregnating a 9-year-old girl.
In Ascension Parish, Louisiana, a 35-year-old man was convicted of raping and impregnating an 11-year-old girl.
Then I discovered a medical abortion that was shocking. It is a rare medical condition (one in 500,000 births) called fetus-in-fetu. In these cases, a twin or triplet absorbs the bodies of the other sibling in utero. As a newborn, they have a mass in their stomach, which is the portions of their sibling. It can be confused with a tumor. It must be medically extracted. I wonder if this procedure would be banned in the states that prohibit any abortions.
What do I conclude from these horrible stories? Children need more protection than they have now. The decision to abort a fetus should be made by physicians and patients, not legislatures.
Columnist Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post believes that the cruelty of the new abortion laws is the point.
Two Republican governors, Kristi L. Noem of South Dakota and Tate Reeves of Mississippi, were asked on Sunday news talk shows about the case of a 10-year-old girl impregnated by her rapist. Are they really insisting that, regardless of the physical harm that giving birth could cause someone so young, the child be further tormented and forced to have the baby? Yes.
Reeves said these are such a “small, minor” number of cases. He wouldn’t say there should be an exception. Noem defended forced birth, insisting, “I don’t believe a tragic situation should be perpetuated by another tragedy.” The tragedy of forcing a 10-year-old to undergo a pregnancy and the pain of childbirth does not register with Noem.
These are not anomalies. Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn (R) said, soon after the decision overturning Roe was announced, that, in his view, a 12-year-old impregnated by incest should be forced to complete her pregnancy. Herschel Walker, a Republican nominee for Senate in Georgia, would agree apparently since he wants no exceptions. Not even to save the woman’s life. Ohio state Rep. Jean Schmidt has called forcing a 13-year-old rape victim to give birth an “opportunity.”
Indeed, the number of states contemplating abortion bans with no exception for rape or incest might shock you. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards — a Democrat — just signed an abortion law with no exception for rape or incest. In Arkansas, Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) seemed open to making an exception, but its absence won’t slow down implementation of the abortion ban in his state.
The New York Times reports, “There are no allowances for victims of rape or incest in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee or Texas.” In Idaho, a woman would have to file a police report to obtain an abortion, something virtually impossible for incest victims and others who live in fear of their attackers.
The monstrous cruelty of such bills shows how little many conservatives care about the well-being of women and girls who have already experienced the unbelievable trauma of sexual violence.
But it gets worse. Many states no longer consider exceptions for the health of the woman or create dangerous uncertainty that puts her life at risk. In the real medical world, where doctors and patients make decisions based on probabilities, the result of such abortion laws can be deadly for women. If abortion is legal only with the “imminent” risk of death, women can be left in peril, facing what can become fatal complications later in pregnancy — when the chances of survival have declined.
In Tennessee, for example, doctors are supposed to prove the woman couldn’t have lived without an abortion. (They must prove “the abortion was necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.”)
NBC News reports:
Arizona’s 15-week abortion ban provides exceptions for emergencies when continuing the pregnancy will “create serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function” for the mother. Oklahoma’s recent ban, the most restrictive in the country, is focused on life-threatening situations. Mental health is almost never seen as enough of a reason to justify an abortion under the laws, said Carol Sanger, professor of law at Columbia University and the author of “About Abortion: Terminating Pregnancy in 21st-Century America.”
Republican candidates for governor in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin joined with antiabortion groups to seek bans “that would not allow the procedure even if the mother’s health were endangered,” The Post reports.
So, yeah, these Republicans care about the life of the unborn, but not the life of the mother. And as soon as the fetus is a child, they forget about him or her too.
The Pope is opposed to abortion even in the case where the fetus is deformed and/or likely to die and likens abortion to “hiring a hitman”
Presumably that applies in all cases, including that of a child impregnated by one of the Catholic Church’s pedophile priests
Like other Popes, he also opposes all artificial forms of birth control, which has resulted in untold numbers of unwanted pregnancies, unwanted children and suffering to poor families throughout the world who cannot afford more children.
There is a word for this: evil
That’s his official stance, of course, but you really have to wonder ho many abortions this Pope and others have financed for their pedo-pals over the years.
I would really like to know how many abortions The Former Guy financed over his decades of libertine behavior.
Poet-
Rolling Stone recently posted an article about religion, politics and the SCOTUS judges’ decisions and conflicts of interest. The word Catholic never made it into print in Rolling Stone’s report.
I greatly appreciate your refusal to allow the scrubbing of info. about what brought on Roe’s overturn- the Catholic Church.
In the epilogue of Kertzer’s new book about the Pope and Mussolini, we learn that a concordant was written by the Pope’s brother and Mussolini to end liberal Italy’s separation of church and state, a document that offered the Church many benefits. After Hitler’s loss, Italy created a narrative similar to the one we see currently in the U.S. Italy’s government working with the Catholic hierarchy deflected and shifted blame from the Church’s complicity in Fascism to an entirety of guilt by Germans. The scapegoat created in the U.S. today, whose formulation we can witness in real time, is Christian nationalists/protestant evangelicals.
From the Kertzer book, ” …two decades of the Fascist regime were notable (in Catholic and Italian narratives) only for their absence.”
While my comments, yours, and Greg’s may not not reach a future telling of of the path to American fascism, they exist as a chronicling of
the truth about Catholic steering of tax money to private schools, of the litigation and amicus briefs that ended separation of church and state and, the atrocity of abortion bans.
Thank you very much for not succumbing to pressure from the right wing Church’s allies.
Words fail.
Clearly, the contemporary Repugnican Party is a child abuser.
Thank you for posting this, Diane.
Horrifying! SICK!
The rePUG-ni-CONS are WRONG again and again and again.
Oh c’mon now! This is “God’s will!” You know, that all-knowing, all-powerful, all-wise, all-LOVING God at work (smh, smh, smh, smh, smh, smh).
It’s a mystery, don’t ya know.
This and the news from Ukraine–the two worst stories you have ever covered here, Diane.
Yesterday, a UN report that some 70 million are likely to face famine because of the Russian Black Sea blockade of Ukrainian grain. Stalin had his Holodomor; Putin, this. Terror famines, both. And both at the feet of one man.
Nonetheless, this evil incarnate will find his defenders in our benighted country.
As child abusers find their defenders in the Republican Party of 2022.
These GOP child abusers say that Democrats are pediphiles. Projection.
Democrats are lovers of feet?
And Republicans are lovers of fetuses: fetophiles.
The radical right blindly follows their ideology without considering the consequences and the fallout from their actions. The right wing Christians behave like a spoiled child that feasts while others starve.
It is detestable these politicians and extremists (and the Pope) would read the list above and by using the words “beginning at conception” say no access to help is ok
It begs the issue again of “life” beginning and claims of a heartbeat which only a scientists can define (Of course, to the extremists, they are ‘only’ scientists so what they say is not true)
“What we’re really detecting is a grouping of cells that are initiating some electrical activity. In no way is this detecting a functional cardiovascular system or a functional heart.”
Jennifer Kerns, OB-GYN, University of California, San Francisco (link below)
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/09/02/1033727679/fetal-heartbeat-isnt-a-medical-term-but-its-still-used-in-laws-on-abortion
Like asking senators and governors to look into the eyes of parents after a mass shooting and making the politicians explain what they are doing to prevent this (nothing) – they should be pressed to read case after case after cases of 10 year old pregnancies and have them answer without blaming the victim or “circumstances”
As for “endangered” not being considered – in some states’ new laws triggered (what a term) by the decision include the procedure is allowed “only in an emergency” threatening the life of the mother.
When asked how an attorney general (clearly no expert in any of this) would define “emergency” when cases are brought forward, the attorney general refuses to respond, the right wing legislator’s response is that is just another “leftist” question and refuses to respond, and no one can answer.
What doctor will declare an emergency at the risk of prosecution.
Who gets prosecuted if the spouse who must give permission for treatment when the patient can’t and s/he states “operate – it’s an emergency.”
Are the EMS driver, the emergency room attendant, the nurse, the doctor, and the hospital all subject to prosecution?
And, on the ripple effects, what doctor will take a case? why would anyone become an emergency (room) doctor? What happens to insurances costs that spin off to skyrocketing hospital bills?
“No government should force subjective and controversial religious beliefs onto those seeking medical care, least of all when it is, as Justice Ginsburg once said, something as central to a person’s life, dignity, and well-being as the choice whether to bear a child,” said Nick Fish, president of American Atheists. “Americans broadly support access to abortion, and they agree that it’s government overreach when the state’s only justification for controlling its citizens’ bodies is religion.”
It’s tragically ironic that Donald Trump, who worships only money and himself, should be the guy to usher in the age of the Theocon.
Ig might be ironic but it is all too common place that the leaders of religious movements are hypocritical takes.
Just look at all the televangelists cashing in on believers’ faith.
E.g., Televangelist Jim Bakker’s “Silver Solution” Covid cure
Liars, con men
Religion is poison.
It’s also command and control.
And it’s really big business.
It eats away, like an acid, at the critical faculties.
It is perpetrated by liars and encourages people to lie to others and, importantly, to themselves.
It is a substitute for thought.
It’s immoral processed food morality in a can.
It’s rationalized delusion.
It’s a full stop to careful thought about any of the subjects that it treats.
And it’s yet another enforcement arm of the authoritarian state.
It’s fake profundity.
It’s divisive and abusive.
It’s also the authoritarian state’s other propaganda arm.
It’s philosophical fast food.
Speaking of child predators, does anyone else find it crazy that Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years for child sex trafficking and literally no one in the media is curious about her clientele? So she trafficked kids to … no one?
Epstein’s mansions had many video cameras. He had videos of his clientele. The FBI seized the videos. Where are they now?
Conveniently disappeared
It really is breathtaking how brazen the Epstein coverup has been. I was particularly appalled that NOT ONE trafficked witness who could tie Epstein and Maxwell to ANY public figure was asked to testify at Maxwell’s trial. This was truly shocking. And it was truly shocking that NO JOURNALISTS COMMENTED ON THIS, to my knowledge.
A brazen, blatant coverup
It’s gotten to the point that our corrupt leaders don’t even bother to try to make something look legit. This is banana republic-level corruption.
Tangential- Epstein had a non-profit in 2016 called Gratitude America LTD.
You make a superb point, Dienne. It was really telling that the witnesses in Maxwell’s trial were carefully curated so that no one who could rat one the Maxwell/Epstein clientele was among the witnesses for the prosecution. Furthermore, all the Epstein properties, according to initial press reports, were wired with surveillance cameras, both still and video, hooked up to centralized computer rooms, and NONE of the material from these has surfaced. It has all been disappeared by the authorities. The amount of corruption that it would take for these things to take place and for Epstein to conveniently die in jail has to be enormous. And it’s all right out in the open, as out in the open as was Acosta’s sweetheart deal with Epstein back in the day was.
I almost threw up and cried after reading this. Hell is coming to America.
It’s utterly sickening and infuriating.
It’s easy to cite all the nut cases we have in elective office in Ohio, but the two who literally get away with murder are Gov. Mike DeWine and Sen. Rob Portman. Each exudes a “reasonable” persona (quiet, white, rich) and says anodyne things occasionally for which they get great, false publicity. But never forget, when looking at their actual policy agendas, these are two of the most venal elected officials around. This post underscores that fact. Glenn Young and Nancy Mace are taking notes and following the same m.o.
Is this child rape being investigated? I haven’t read anything about that.
Because it is a fake story.
Apparently it’s not.
Oh, but ALL–every single one–of these children born WILL be adopted into loving, moneyed families with health insurance and everything imagined that a child needs, so no need to wring our hands, people.
&, again, how many minors in these Untied States are already in foster care? How many are homeless? Betting that LOTS of them will end up in privately run detention centers. But don’t worry, good readers: FEMA will take care of them all, just like it did such a great job with Katrina.
& I am sickened by LA’s Dem. guv, john bel edwards, signing that state’s cruel & horrendous law.
Really, there are no words…
The Ohio fetus heartbeat bill began the committee process of becoming law in 2017. Gov. Dewine who has 8 kids and signed his oath of office on 7 or more Bibles was in office when the bill became law in 2021. The Pro-Temp Speaker of the Senate, Matt Huffman who is ardently school choice was in office during the timing (he left office in 2021 after being in the House and Senate for 14 years). He is Catholic and attended Notre Dame. His first cousin, Steve Huffman (fired from his day job for a racist comment in a state hearing session) is also a proponent of school choice. Both men were co-sponsors of the heartbeat bill.
My opinion, SCOTUS will render a decision leaving it up to states to deny voting rights to women. Roe is the dry run for the subsequent legislation.
will render a decision leaving it up to states to deny voting rights to women
Nope. This is protected by a constitutional amendment.
Bob-
The overthrow of the legislative and executive branches on Jan. 6 ?
Except that neither the Ohio or Indiana doctor’s have reported the rape to children services or to law enforcement? Which means it probably never happened. But the disinformation is only disinformation if it comes from the “right”
This story was fake. There was no 10 year old girl. If there was Ohio would have taken care of it and allowed a abortion. It’s getting old listening to hysterical people come up with fake stories and hoaxes to further the agenda. It is not helping the cause.
Why don’t you run down whether the rapist of the 10 year old was in fact living with the mother while he was raping her daughter? . The mother is now defending him on Telemundo and saying none of it is true. Isn’t that strange? What kind of woman lets the man she lives with rape her daughter, and by the way, who is morally and legally responsible for a ten year old’s child’s safety? There are many aspects to this story that don’t pass the test, including the fact that the 10 year old could have gotten an emergency abortion past 6 weeks under Ohio law in any case. But the media has been very lazy about getting the facts out there and instead still runs with the headline that the child had to go out of state to get the abortion. It all is fake news until the truth comes out.
What part of the story is fake news?
The 10-year-old was raped and pregnant, even though that cretin Jim Jordan said it was a lie.
It was not a lie.
Jordan deleted his tweet.
The child was not able to get an abortion in Ohio.
The state attorney general is now threatening to arrest whoever helped the child get an abortion.
Why did she get an an abortion in Indiana if she could have stayed in Ohio?
Soon, she won’t be able to get an abortion in Indiana.
What part of this story is fake?
Do you think she faked the pregnancy?
If you read my post, you know that many children have been raped. Some had babies.
Do you think a 10-year-old should give birth?
For those idiots on this thread calling this a fake story, within just two days of your posts, the Indiana doc who performed the abortion is being investigated by IN’s AG [because she reported the procedure, as required), and the OH rapist was tracked down and jailed.
The young rape victims you mentioned were not protected by their families.
Hopefully the legal system will take care of their rapists. If Fuentes is confirmed to be the father of the killed fetus in Ohio, he should spend the rest of his life in jail. Apparently authorities aren’t sure if he is using his real identification or that he is here in the US legally.
Hopefully your next blog can focus on resources to help parents/children before they are impregnated and have to make the devastating choice of having an abortion.
Rape should not be political issue.
Was the 10 year old rape victim denied abortion in Ohio? If so, by what facility? There are exceptions to the 6 week cut off in Ohio.
https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/state-facts-about-abortion-ohio#
I don’t know how to prevent rape or incest. When it occurs, the rapist should be jailed for many years. The victim of rape or incest should be able to get a safe and legal abortion. When children are impregnated, they should get an abortion at once.