Updated July 13, 2022 at 4:35 PM ET
President Joe Biden makes a statement on reproductive rights while Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra hear at the White House on July 8th.
Photo: Alex Wong / Getty Images
Editor’s Note: The Columbus Dispatch reported Wednesday, a day after the publication of this editorial, that a man from Columbus, Ohio, has been charged with the rape of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who went travel to Indiana to have an abortion. The Dispatch reports that Columbus police were informed of the pregnancy by a referral to local child services by the girl’s mother on June 22, although no public confirmation of the referral or arrest was reported. until the story of Dispatch on July 13th.
All sorts of great stories travel far on social media these days, but don’t expect them to have an audience in the White House. However, this is what seems to have happened on Friday when President Biden signed an executive order on abortion.
With Vice President Kamala Harris and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra nearby, Mr. Biden repeated a story that was circulating on social media following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. She said a 10-year-old girl who did not identify by her name was forced to travel from Ohio to Indiana to have an abortion because Ohio now bans abortion after a fetal heartbeat is discovered. The girl had been raped, she said, and Ohio law now does not include any exceptions to abortion in cases of rape or incest.
Mr Biden became restless as he spoke: “Ten years. Raped, six weeks pregnant. Already traumatized. She was forced to travel to another state. Imagine being that girl. Just … I’m serious, just imagine. ‘ t be that girl “.
Imagine, in fact. The tale is a powerful tale of post-Roe misfortune for those who want to make abortion a voting issue this fall. One problem: there is no evidence that the girl exists. Megan Fox of PJ Media was the first to point this out, and so far no one has been able to identify the girl or where she lives.
The claim originated in a July 1 piece by the Indianapolis Star titled, “Patients Go to Indiana to Receive Abortion Services, as Other States Restrict Attention.” Caitlin Bernard, an obstetrician and gynecologist, told the newspaper’s medical reporter that after the Ohio ban went into effect, she had sent a call about the girl to a “child abuse doctor” in Buckeye state. The 10-year-old soon “was on her way to Indiana in Bernard’s care.” Presumably Dr. Bernard had an abortion.
Medical professionals have a duty to report child rape to law enforcement, but Dr. Bernard will not say where the alleged crime occurred or identify the Ohio doctor who derived the case. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost told Fox News Monday that his office had not heard “even a whisper” of the crime from prosecutors, police and sheriffs in his state. You may not be surprised to learn that Dr. Bernard has a long history of anti-abortion activism in the media.
What we seem to have here is a stamp of presidential approval on an unlikely story from a biased source that fits perfectly with the progressive narrative, but that cannot be confirmed. The debate over abortion is intense and passions are high. But the American people deserve their president better than an unproven story designed to aggravate those passions.
Wonder Land: Democrats always seem about to push politics into a state of civil unrest. Images: Getty Images / The Boston Globe Composite: Mark Kelly
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It appeared in the July 13, 2022 print edition.