Did a 10 year old rape victim from Ohio get denied an abortion?
A viral story sourced to an Indiana pro-choice activist references a law that does not exist.
On July 8th, President Biden included in a speech, discussing some actions he was taking subsequent to the United States Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade:
“This isn’t some imagined horror. It is already happening. Just last week, it was reported that a 10-year-old girl was a rape victim — 10 years old — and she was forced to have to travel out of state to Indiana to seek to terminate the pregnancy and maybe save her life.”
This anecdotal story went viral the week before, and has become somewhat of the central theme of what many believe are the ultimate results of the Supreme Court’s decision.
The story first originated out of an Indiana publication IndyStar1 - “Patients head to Indiana for abortion services as other states restrict care”
On Monday three days after the Supreme Court issued its groundbreaking decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist, took a call from a colleague, a child abuse doctor in Ohio.
Hours after the Supreme Court action, the Buckeye state had outlawed any abortion after six weeks. Now this doctor had a 10-year-old patient in the office who was six weeks and three days pregnant.
That was the entire set of details provided. The story itself was not about this 10 year old girl - the 10 year old girl was an anecdote used as a segue into a call to action to the readers, alerting them to legislative battles in Indiana. The very next lines in the article:
Could Bernard help?
Indiana lawmakers are poised to further restrict or ban abortion in mere weeks. The Indiana General Assembly will convene in a special session July 25 when it will discuss restrictions to abortion policy along with inflation relief.
Nowhere in the article is the 10 year old’s situation further discussed.
Coverage explodes
Despite this lack of detail, this anecdote written in passing was picked up and turned into a major story - also with no additional details.
Business Insider2 - “A 10-year-old was forced to cross state lines for an abortion after Ohio's ban went into place. The Indiana doctor who helped her will soon be unable to assist others”
With abortion outlawed after six weeks in Ohio, physicians in neighboring Indiana described an influx of out-of-state patients seeking care. Among them: a pregnant 10-year-old.
The Daily Beast3 - “10-Year-Old Ohio Girl Forced to Travel Out of State for Abortion After Roe Reversal”
A 10-year-old Ohio girl had to travel out of state to undergo an abortion after she was referred by a child abuse doctor following the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade reversal, the Indianapolis Star reports. Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Indianapolis, told the newspaper she was the one to take the call from a colleague in Ohio seeking urgent help for the girl, who was six weeks and three days pregnant when the state’s six-week abortion ban suddenly took effect.
The Hill4 - “10-year-old girl denied abortion in Ohio”
A 10-year-old girl was denied an abortion in Ohio after the Supreme Court ruled last week that it was overturning Roe v. Wade, demonstrating the tangible impacts that the high court’s decision is having on patients seeking access to the medical procedure.
A child abuse doctor in Ohio contacted Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Indiana, after receiving a 10-year-old patient who was six weeks and three days pregnant, the Indianapolis Star reported.
These few were among many others such as
Questions raised
Some began to question the veracity of the story not only for the extreme lack of information, but also the background of the source.
Dr Bernard is a vocal pro-choice activist, which she has every right to be. However it is clear she communicates with the press somewhat regularly, as opposed to being an arbitrary doctor reached out to for comment by a reporter. She understands that news stories can be used as a tool to further her objectives.
Eventually, even the Washington Post chimed in on the lack of substance behind the story and gave some reason for skepticism
The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed a right to abortion, has led a number of states to quickly impose new laws to restrict or limit abortions. Ohio was one of the first, imposing a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape and incest.
[…]
Under Ohio law, a physician, as a mandated reporter under Ohio Revised Code 2151.421, would be required to report any case of known or suspected physical, sexual or emotional abuse or neglect of a child to their local child welfare or law enforcement agency. So Bernard’s colleague would have had to make such a report to law enforcement at the same time he or she contacted Bernard. Presumably then a criminal case would have been opened.
Bernard declined to identify to the Fact Checker her colleague or the city where the child was located. “Thank you for reaching out. I’m sorry, but I don’t have any information to share,” she said in an email.
[…]
This is a very difficult story to check. Bernard is on the record, but obtaining documents or other confirmation is all but impossible without details that would identify the locality where the rape occurred.
So while the original anecdote raises many questions that others have already asked, somehow everyone has missed a very important detail - this law in Ohio does not exist.
Wait, what? It doesn’t even exist?
The law does not exist. That is correct. It is true that some law exists that has relevance in a post-Roe environment. It is not true that this law has a six week cutoff on abortions that caused a 10 year old to have to travel to Indiana because of three extra days.
What does exist is a fetal heartbeat law. The law is found in Section 2919.192 of Ohio Revised Code under Title 29 Crimes-Procedure - Chapter 2919 Offenses Against the Family. The law states
(A) A person who intends to perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman shall determine whether there is a detectable fetal heartbeat of the unborn human individual the pregnant woman is carrying. The method of determining the presence of a fetal heartbeat shall be consistent with the person's good faith understanding of standard medical practice, provided that if rules have been adopted under division (B) of this section, the method chosen shall be one that is consistent with the rules. The person who determines the presence or absence of a fetal heartbeat shall record in the pregnant woman's medical record the estimated gestational age of the unborn human individual, the method used to test for a fetal heartbeat, the date and time of the test, and the results of the test.
The person who performs the examination for the presence of a fetal heartbeat shall give the pregnant woman the option to view or hear the fetal heartbeat.
How did everyone get this basic fact wrong?
With a few clicks, you can see the sleight of hand occur. If we revisit the original IndyStar article, they hyperlink to this story in their opening line referring to the Supreme Court decision.
Five days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Ohio's abortion clinics are suing to restore access to abortions in the state.
Attorneys for the state's abortion providers argue that the Ohio Constitution goes farther than the U.S. Constitution in protecting residents' health care choices, including abortions, according to a lawsuit filed at the Ohio Supreme Court Wednesday.
The lawsuit asks justices on the Ohio Supreme Court to find Ohio's newly imposed ban on abortions after six weeks unconstitutional and restore access to abortions up to 22 weeks after the patient's last period.
That article links to another of their articles, about this “newly imposed ban.” The title of that article is “Ohio's six-week abortion ban becomes law hours after Supreme Court's Dobbs decision”
The very first line of that article, however…
Abortions in Ohio are now illegal once a fetal heartbeat can be detected.
What has happened, overall, is that critics of this bill have said this heartbeat might be able to be detected as early as six weeks. This criticism has turned into colloquial reference of the law and ultimately “common knowledge” of what the law is.
Peculiar inconsistencies in reporting
The Washington Post story demonstrates a very peculiar inconsistency in the reporting standards of news outlets. When discussing the issue of Ohio trying to find the rapist, they choose to reference the law directly.
Under Ohio law, a physician, as a mandated reporter under Ohio Revised Code 2151.421[…]
However when referencing the “six week” law, they do not reference the law directly, but reference a third party’s blurb about the law. They link to the “Guttmacher Institute.”
The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed a right to abortion, has led a number of states to quickly impose new laws to restrict or limit abortions. Ohio was one of the first, imposing a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape and incest.
I have kept their link in the above excerpt. They link to an Ohio “fact sheet” page that contains a bullet point "Abortion is banned at six weeks of pregnancy, except in cases of life endangerment or severely compromised physical health.”
So in one instance they refer to the law directly. In another they refer to a fact sheet that is incorrect, and itself does not link to the actual law. Their provided references are not the law text either.
Implications
Were there a 10 year old who had to travel from Ohio to Indiana to see Dr Caitlan Bernard then it would have been because the doctor in Ohio had detected a heartbeat, not that they were six weeks and three days pregnant. If they were also six weeks and three days pregnant, that would be included as a detail to potentially make the argument that the heartbeat law can result in denial of medical procedures the citizens of Ohio would prefer to permit - but it would most certainly not be the reason the medical services were denied.
The law explicitly says so
(C) A person is not in violation of division (A) of this section if that person has performed an examination for the purpose of determining the presence of a fetal heartbeat of an unborn human individual utilizing standard medical practice in accordance with rules adopted under division (B) of this section, that examination does not reveal a fetal heartbeat or the person has been informed by a physician who has performed the examination for a fetal heartbeat that the examination did not reveal a fetal heartbeat, and the person notes in the pregnant woman's medical records the procedure utilized to detect the presence of a fetal heartbeat.
But why?
You can understand the motivation of Dr. Caitlan Bernard, as a strong pro-choice activist, to make up a story. If you mistakenly understand the Ohio law to be a literal six week ban, then it is plausible that someday this combination of details will occur. The fact that the story isn’t true now is not strictly relevant to you, because it’s a lie that harms nobody and you believe it will be true eventually. From your perspective, it only contains upside.
Both because of legal restrictions and reasonable people wishing to do no harm, subjecting a 10 year old to public scrutiny after already having to endure so much, trying to ascertain the validity of the story is untenable. If you do attempt to ascertain those details, you open yourself up to criticism that perhaps you wish to do further harm.
The lie itself would be particularly shielded from scrutiny of details.
Additionally, as the original article aims to do, you place a strong visual in Indiana reader’s mind of what could happen to someone in their family, if similar laws were to pass in their state.
Since you believe the six week law exists, you consider it a white lie, because it could happen. A throwaway story with few details becomes insignificant to you.
In the event there is any real girl to trace this story back to (which would be horribly tragic), and the doctor in Ohio made her go to Indiana because they had determined she was three days past six weeks pregnant, that doctor would be doing so despite there being no law forbidding them from performing the procedure.
[Update 7/13/2022] The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that someone has been arrested in relation to this event.
A Columbus man has been charged with impregnating a 10-year-old Ohio girl, whose travel to Indiana to seek an abortion led to international attention following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade and activation of Ohio's abortion law.
Gershon Fuentes, 27, whose last known address was an apartment on Columbus' Northwest Side, was arrested Tuesday after police say he confessed to raping the child on at least two occasions. He's since been charged with rape, a felony of the first degree in Ohio.
From the IndyStar - Ohio man charged in rape of 10-year-old that led to Indiana abortion
Columbus police were made aware of the girl's pregnancy through a referral by Franklin County Children Services that was made by her mother on June 22, Det. Jeffrey Huhn testified Wednesday morning at Fuentes' arraignment. On June 30, the girl underwent a medical abortion in Indianapolis, Huhn said in court Wednesday, according to the Columbus Dispatch, a Gannett sister paper that has been working on the story with IndyStar.
