When President Joe Biden last week cited a report of a 10-year-old Ohio rape victim forced to travel out of state to Indiana for an abortion, it quickly reached national headlines in the hot environment after the annulment by the Supreme Court of Roe vs. Wade.
In the days that followed, the story went viral, first as an example of the realities of the new state restrictions on abortion, then with doubts raised about the story by right-wing commentators such as Fox News’ Jesse Watters. who said Monday that if the story was not accurate, the mainstream media and Biden would be “taking advantage of another deception.”
Outnumbered hosts and experts joined in the doubts.
But on Wednesday, the Columbus Dispatch reported that Gershon Fuentes, 27, had been arrested in the case. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, who on Monday told Watters that his office had not heard “a whisper” of the case, said Wednesday that “we are glad every time a child rapist is taken off the streets.”
What has transpired is, in effect, a reverse denial: the story pointed out as suspicious by some Fox News figures, considered “too good to confirm” by The Wall Journal Journal’s editorial board and questioned by other media outlets, including the Washington Post data verifier. , however has been verified. Among the first to do so was the Fox News news side.
In a July 1 news release, The Indianapolis Star reported that Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indianapolis obstetrician and gynecologist, received a call from a child abuse doctor in Ohio who had a 10-year-old patient raped that he could not have an abortion in the state because of a law passed a few hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. The girl then traveled to Indiana, which has not yet approved new restrictions.
In his speech, Biden lamented the post-Roe environment. “This is no horror imagined. It’s already happening,” he said.
The next day, Washington Post data verifier Glenn Kessler posted an analysis of the story. His conclusion: “This is a very difficult story to check.” While Bernard was on the record, it was “all but impossible” to verify the claim without more specific details “identifying the location where the rape occurred.” The site Snopes.com also said it could not verify the story.
In his commentary questioning the story, Watters cited Kessler’s analysis, though he noted the multiple media outlets that had picked him up. “We’re not lucky enough to confirm this story,” while reprimanding the Indianapolis star for, in his words, “running and hiding” from the story.
The next day, Outnumbered commentators went even further, focusing in part on the fact that the IndyStar story was from a single source. Host Emily Compagno reprimanded the IndyStar and said the news organization “considered the public’s right to know to be full on its agenda.”
“Take it from me,” Compagno said, “because my helmsman was a criminal right as a lawyer. There is no shortage of rape victims for 10 years.… There are so many monsters out there. So for me the what I find so deeply offensive is that they had to invent a fake one. “
Collaborator Charlie Hurt said, “The idea that you would have politicians in the United States trying to exploit a story like this and invent a story like this, in order to move forward on your own sick agenda, tells you not to take it seriously. and are not taken seriously by people who are affected by the problem.
Guest Kellyanne Conway, a former adviser to President Donald Trump, said the story was possibly one of a line of reports “too rich to verify” that had widespread traction in the media and on the left. “I hope it’s not true because the facts are so horrible,” he said.
On Tuesday night, Fox News’ Aishah Hasnie, citing an unnamed source, told the Special Report that the story was, in fact, true, that an arrest warrant was expected soon and that Bernard was being investigated for possible violations of medical privacy. “The source says the hospital firmly believes the HIPAA violation is how the White House confirmed the story. They tell me Bernard is still working and working. And receiving death threats.”
The Columbus Dispatch reported that Columbus police “were informed of the girl’s pregnancy through a referral from Franklin County Children’s Services made by her mother on June 22.” Kessler wrote that he had contacted Franklin County officials for his original analysis, but they did not respond.
Kessler wrote on Twitter that his original piece noted that “if a rapist is ever charged, the fact would ultimately have a stronger foundation.”
“Now, a rapist has been charged and the story has been updated,” Kessler wrote. “I get a lot of angry emails, but journalism is a bunch of facts.”
A spokesman for The Indianapolis Star said its executive editor, Bro Krift, was unavailable for comment, but earlier this week the publication issued a statement saying: “The facts and the origin about “People who cross state borders in Indiana, including the 10-year-old girl, because abortions are clear. We have no further comment at this time.”
Kessler wrote that the story raises issues of single supply and independent confirmation, something that others must keep in mind. But it is also an example of the dangers of the expert, either to the right or to the left. Hurt approached it unintentionally, with a double negative, when he told the Superencades panel, “Not having evidence that is not true is not evidence that it is true. And this is how the media has gone today.”
FoxNews.com, meanwhile, has updated its report on the case, now with news, citing an ICE source, that the suspect in the case is an illegal immigrant.