The horrific story that a 10-year-old girl was raped and impregnated — and the political and media firestorm that followed — is a sampling of what sadly will be other such spectacles splayed across the public consciousness in the wake of the United States Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
The fact is, before that decision, we likely would have heard nothing about this little girl’s awful situation. It properly would have been the discrete personal and family medical matter it should have been — coupled with criminal charges for the rapist. Think of what this child’s life has become and will be now, because of what courts and opportunistic politicians have wrought.
Again, a 10-year-old girl, a fifth-grader, was raped. And because of a new, hardline law in her home state of Ohio, she and her family had to travel to Indiana for a medically necessary abortion.
Dr. Caitlin Bernard, who performed the procedure, told The Indianapolis Star about it, and naturally, this was news. But it also soon became something else: an opportunity for far-right-wing politicians and media. First they questioned the story. Some accused Bernard of making the whole thing up, suggesting she was the opportunist. But when the arrest of an undocumented immigrant accused of the girl’s rape validated the story, the hardliners took a new tack.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, whose top priority seems to be getting his mug on Fox News to mutter the word “Marxist,” did just that. It didn’t matter that he was talking about a little girl who had been raped. What was best for her wasn’t important.
This is what those who advocated against overturning Roe warned about: doing so would lead to girls and women dying. Rokita doesn’t want to talk about that, and he certainly is unqualified to opine on medical matters. Yet he went on Fox News, then sent a letter to Gov. Eric Holcomb, suggesting maybe Bernard hadn’t met legal reporting requirements, maybe should lose her license, etc. She soon showed she had complied with the law. Rokita? Well …
Bernard’s attorney, Kathleen DeLaney, warned they were “considering legal action against those who have smeared my client, including Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita … .” So we taxpayers can look forward to some legal bills because Rokita just cannot help himself.
Meanwhile, Jim Bopp, the Terre Haute attorney advising Republican lawmakers spoiling to ban abortion in Indiana, said model legislation he’s drafted would have required the child in this case to have the baby, regardless of risk to her own life. This is an odd definition of “pro-life.”
“She would have had the baby, and as many women who have had babies as a result of rape, we would hope that she would understand the reason and ultimately the benefit of having the child,” Bopp told Politico.
Indiana is preparing to potentially outlaw abortion in this state. But as this tragic case shows, abortion is a complex, personal matter that’s often medically necessary. Don’t most of us believe that the state should not impose its will over the right of individuals to make such personal decisions about our own lives?
Lawmakers convene Monday to weigh abortion restrictions. We have never had a clearer case demonstrating why Indiana should not ban abortion without, at the very least, providing exceptions for the health of the mother and in cases of rape or incest.
