During an exchange with Democratic U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell on restrictions on abortion care, Americans United for Life President Kathryn Glenn Foster told the House Judiciary Committee on July 14 that treating a 10-year-old girl for an abortion after her rape would “affect her life and therefore fall under no exception, it would not be an abortion.” “Hold on,” said MP Swalwell. “Wouldn’t it be abortion if a 10-year-old, with her parents, decided not to have a child as a result of rape?” “If a 10-year-old became pregnant as a result of rape and it threatened her life, then that’s not an abortion, so she wouldn’t fall under any restrictions on abortion in our country,” Ms Foster said. The question followed the arrest of a 27-year-old suspect in Ohio accused of raping a 10-year-old girl who was referred for abortion care in Indiana after Ohio officials passed a state law banning abortions at about six weeks of pregnancy. no exceptions for rape or incest. The Ohio law took effect just hours after the US Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion care last month. The court’s ruling now allows states to enact restrictive abortion laws previously deemed unconstitutional based on the half-century-old rule established in Roe v Wade. According to the police affidavit, police were alerted to the case through a referral from Franklin County Children’s Services made by the girl’s mother on June 22. Two days later, the state’s anti-abortion law went into effect, and she reportedly received care in Indiana on June 30. Congressional committees are holding a series of hearings on the state of abortion access and the far-reaching implications of the Supreme Court’s June 24 decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization. MP Swalwell called on committee witness Sarah Warbelow, legal director for the Human Rights Campaign, to respond to Ms Foster’s comments. “I heard some very important misinformation,” she said, before adding: “Abortion is a procedure. It’s a medical procedure that people undergo for a wide range of circumstances, including because they’ve been sexually assaulted or raped in the case of the 10-year-old. “It doesn’t matter if there’s a legal exemption or not, it’s still a medical procedure that’s understood to be an abortion.” Democratic U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean also condemned the Republican panel’s anti-abortion rhetoric as well as “the witness, our expert here, who is fabricating that if a girl had a procedure to save her life, she’s no longer abortion”. “Of course it is, it’s a medical procedure,” he said. “Republicans think women are too stupid to make decisions for ourselves.” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost claimed the rape victim “didn’t have to leave Ohio to seek treatment.” That’s not the case, according to state law and an analysis by the nonpartisan Ohio Legislative Services Commission. Ohio is among 10 states – including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas – that provide no exemptions for abortions of pregnancies resulting from rape or incest under the laws of their state governing abortion care. Some of these measures are currently blocked by legal challenges. Following the Supreme Court ruling, nearly all abortions at any point in pregnancy are illegal in at least nine states – Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin – and other states are implementing other access restrictions in legal care.
