https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/did-it-really-happen
Did It Really Happen?
Abortion and “fake news.”
Cathy Young
Jul 10
A pro-choice placard at a protest for the protection of abortion rights outside the U.S. Embassy on May 7, 2022 in London, England. (Photo by Hollie Adams/Getty Images)
(Happy Sunday! Once again, Cathy Young takes over the Sunday Morning Shots.)
The story of the 10-year-old pregnant rape victim in Ohio who had to travel to Indiana to get an abortion because she was three days past Ohio’s six-week cutoff point for legal abortion, reported in the Indianapolis Star on July 1, quickly went viral as a shocking example of the barbarism descending on the nation because of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. It struck even many people with pro-life sympathies as an example of anti-abortion extremism. On July 8, President Biden mentioned it when signing an executive order on abortion access.
The question is: Did it really happen?
Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler casts strong doubt on the story’s authenticity in an article published on Saturday, calling it “the account of a one-source story that quickly went viral around the world—and into the talking points of the president.”
Kessler notes that the harrowing tale appeared as the opening of a story about women from Ohio traveling to other states to get abortions.
The [original Indianapolis Star] article said that three days after the June 24 court ruling, an Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist, Caitlan Bernard, who performs abortions, received a call from “a child abuse doctor” in Ohio who had a 10-year-old patient who was six weeks and three days pregnant. Unable to obtain an abortion in Ohio, “the girl soon was on her way to Indiana to Bernard’s care,” the Star reported.
The only source cited for the anecdote was Bernard. She’s on the record, but there is no indication that the newspaper made other attempts to confirm her account. The story’s lead reporter, Shari Rudavsky, did not respond to a query asking whether additional sourcing was obtained. . . .
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. . . .
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.
Dan Tierney, press secretary for Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R), said the governor’s office was unaware of any specific case but he said under the state’s decentralized system, records would be held at a local level. . . . As a spot check, we contacted child services agencies in some of Ohio’s most populous cities, including Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton and Toledo. None of the officials we reached were aware of such a case in their areas.
The fact-checking website Snopes.com also says that they were unable to get any corroborating information and that Bernard did not respond to their query.
At this point, I’m leaning strongly toward “probably didn’t happen.” Pregnancy in a 10-year-old is certainly not impossible (earlier this year, a 10-year-old in Brazil was initially denied an abortion because it was sought past the 22-week cutoff point), but it is extremely rare. (Kessler notes that 52 girls under the age of 15 got abortions in Ohio in 2020; but “under 15” is not the same as 10.) It also seems likely, as some doubters of the story have noted, that a pregnant 10-year-old would have also qualified for the life or health exemption written into Ohio’s law banning abortions beyond six weeks. The law states that the ban
does not apply to a physician who performs a medical procedure that, in the physician's reasonable medical judgment, is designed or intended to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent a serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.
In raising these reasonable questions about the Ohio story, Kessler was doing basic journalism. But—in a development that will surprise exactly no one—a lot of readers in the comments under his article have reacted by making him the bad guy:
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