US state of Ohio
Abortion after rape: Police confirm case of 10-year-old – after right-wing politicians expressed doubts
“Rapists don’t use condoms”: Protest in Hamilton, Ohio against Supreme Court abortion ruling.
© Jason Whitman / Picture Alliance
A 10-year-old girl was raped and pregnant in Ohio. However, abortion is illegal in the state. Now the alleged perpetrator has been charged, and authorities have confirmed that the girl received help in Indiana.
US President Joe Biden had publicly denounced her case, but right-wing politicians and the media in the US doubted that the tragic event happened that way. But now the responsible authorities have confirmed that a ten-year-old from the state of Ohio had become pregnant after being raped, but was not allowed to have an abortion because of the new rigid legislation. The girl had therefore traveled to neighboring Indiana to terminate the pregnancy.
Alleged rapist charged
The police also confirmed the sensational case because the alleged perpetrator has now been charged. The 27-year-old is being investigated for raping a minor under the age of 13. At a court hearing, police officer Jeffrey Huhn confirmed, according to the Columbus Dispatch newspaperthat the raped girl had an abortion in Indiana at the end of June. According to a doctor for abused children, the ten-year-old was seven weeks pregnant and was therefore no longer allowed to be treated in her home country.
The arrested man confessed to the rape. In addition, DNA samples of the aborted embryo would be examined to prove the perpetrators.
The case also made headlines because it broke just as the US Supreme Court abolished abortion rights. Ohio, a Republican-governed Midwestern state, like other states, enacted an abortion ban within hours of the Supreme Court ruling. US President Joe Biden reported on the girl’s case in a speech when he presented measures to protect the right to abortion. “Imagine what it’s like to be that little girl.”
No unified abortion policy
Because there is now no uniform federal law on abortion, states can ban abortion largely or completely. Numerous conservative-governed states have already done so. The 10-year-old’s case is also an example of what lies ahead for clinics in states that will continue to have liberal abortion laws. Gynecologists from Indiana report an enormous influx of affected girls and women from the neighboring states of Ohio and Kentucky. According to the doctors, the demand in the abortion clinics has risen from five to eight a day to 20 now.
Sources: AFP, “Columbus Dispatch”, “Cincinnati Enquirers”; WAFYI Indianapolis