The new bans in nearly a dozen states make no exceptions for rape or incest, leaving young teens — already the most limited in abortion options — with less access to the procedure. Even in states with rape and incest exemptions, requirements that include police reports and parental consent can be prohibitive for children and teens. “The situation out of Ohio is by no means unique,” said Katie McHugh, an Indiana OB-GYN and board member of the pro-abortion rights group Physicians for Reproductive Health. “This is a situation that every abortion provider has seen before.” The number of pregnancies in the United States among girls under 15 has fallen sharply in recent decades with greater access to contraception and a decline in teen sexual activity. However, state and federal data show that there are still thousands of such cases each year. And nearly half of those pregnancies end in abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which advocates for abortion rights and regularly surveys clinics. In 2017, the latest year for which data was available, the institute concluded there were 4,460 pregnancies among girls under 15, with about 44 percent ending in abortion. In Ohio alone, 52 girls under 15 had an abortion in 2020 — an average of one every week, according to the state Department of Health. It is not clear how often these pregnancies are the result of incest or rape. Children in this age group are generally below the age of sexual consent, although sexual intercourse between two teenagers of a similar age is not always considered a crime. And some states allow children to marry with parental permission. In Ohio, having sex with a person under the age of 13 is a first-degree felony. Abortion is now prohibited in the state after about six weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest. The Ohio rape victim’s frightening age helped cast doubt on her story, which quickly turned into a political firestorm after it was reported in The Indianapolis Star. Abortion rights advocates and President Biden have pointed to the girl’s experience as a tragic consequence of abortion bans. Conservatives questioned whether the child existed, and even Ohio’s attorney general initially said he found no evidence of such a victim. That doctor, Caitlin Bernard, later tweeted: “My heart breaks for all survivors of sexual assault and abuse. I am so sad that our country is failing them when they need us the most.”
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Lauren Ralph, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, said her research shows that teenage abortion seekers tend to be firm in their choice, but face barriers such as lack of transportation and notice-and-consent laws. of the parents. majority of states. Minors seeking to avoid parental notification, such as in the case of incest or when a parent would like to force a pregnancy, are often required to file a police report or appear before a judge. Those are high and sometimes impossible to clear, experts said, especially for people without legal help and young victims who may have been hurt by the adults closest to them. With some Americans living up to 400 miles away from the nearest legal abortion provider, the state’s new bans are hitting teenagers hard. “We know that young people already faced many more barriers to accessing abortion before the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade,” said Dr. Ralph. “What will happen with this decision is that those barriers for young people living in restricted states will now multiply.” Dr. Bernard, the Indiana gynecologist who performed the abortion on the 10-year-old Ohio girl, said in an interview in early July, before the political firestorm erupted, that he had experience treating other very young rape victims. The most difficult case of her career, she said, was one where a mother brought her 14-year-old daughter on a date after the girl was raped. The mother wanted her daughter to have an abortion. “But the patient said, ‘I don’t want to kill my baby,’” Dr. Bernard recalled. “She felt abortion was wrong.” Dr. Bernard said she told the mother she could not perform the abortion without the 14-year-old’s verbal consent. Eventually, the mother convinced her daughter to undergo the procedure. Indiana, which currently allows abortions up to 22 weeks, may enact its own stricter limits soon in a special legislative session scheduled for late July. In Oklahoma, a law banning nearly all abortions makes exceptions for cases of rape or incest, but only if those crimes have been reported to law enforcement. Wendi Stearman, the Republican lawmaker behind that Oklahoma law, defended high hurdles for exemptions. As for the 10-year-old in Ohio, “It’s horrible, what happened there,” she said. “But it’s even more horrific to take another child’s life.” Ms Spearman said laws should not cover worst-case scenarios. “The general should be legislated, and this is an incredibly rare case,” he said. It is not unusual for some lawmakers and anti-abortion organizations to oppose rape exceptions to abortion bans, sometimes even in the case of child victims. In a statement praising the arrest of a 27-year-old suspect in the Ohio case, Ohio Right to Life expressed concern for the young woman and her family, but called her abortion a “band-aid solution” that “only added to the pain and the violence perpetrated against her. The victim deserved better.” Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, said: “The violence of rape will not be cured by the violence of abortion. The love and support this child needs will be continuous, not instantaneous.” But abortion providers and doctors who care for younger patients say this approach fails to recognize the needs and wants of young victims and their families. In Colorado, Kristina Tocce, medical director for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said she had performed an abortion on a 13-year-old incest victim and recently treated her youngest patient ever: an 11-year-old Texan who flew to Denver for an abortion with a parent. Although this patient was treated before Roe was overturned, the child was forced to leave Texas because the state had come up with a legal solution to ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest. It was the 11-year-old’s first time on a plane, Dr. Tocce said. In Texas, state records show more than 200 children age 15 and under had abortions in 2021, before the ban passed. One of these patients was 11 years old or younger, and 30 were 12 or 13 years old. Dr. Tocce predicted an influx of patients in Colorado, where abortion remains legal with no gestational limit. Even in states that allow the procedure in cases of rape or incest, the burden of proving that patients qualify for an exemption can intimidate providers, who may not want to risk prosecution, he noted. “These exemptions are in print, except they mean virtually nothing when everyone practicing there is very scared,” he said. In Madison, Wis., Jennifer Ginsburg, executive director of the Safe Harbor Child Advocacy Center, said she was saddened but not surprised to hear the Ohio victim’s story. Just a few months earlier, her center, which works with victims of child abuse, had referred a 10-year-old girl, impregnated by her stepfather, to Planned Parenthood for an abortion. Ms. Ginsburg and her team provide counseling and support to young victims of abuse and their family members, while ensuring that any forensic evaluations conducted for police investigations do not exacerbate a child’s trauma. If a victim wanted an abortion, the center would help connect them with nearby providers. But shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe, doctors in Wisconsin cut off abortion services. Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, is battling the Republican-led Wisconsin Legislature over the validity of a century-old law that criminalizes nearly all abortions, including those resulting from rape and incest. Mr. Evers and his attorney general have filed a lawsuit in an attempt to block the ban. Ms. Ginsburg said Safe Harbor was not awaiting the results of the governor’s lawsuit. She planned with other local organizations to help young victims travel out of state for abortions — a plan that advocates are increasingly turning to as more states outlaw the procedure. “How will we help pregnant children?” asked. Margot Sanger-Katz contributed reporting.
