Post-Roe Complications Will Continue
Many Republicans claimed that the story about a ten-year-old girl from Ohio having to get an emergency abortion in Indiana, of all places, thanks to being raped was fabricated or a lie.
Sadly, this horror story is very real, and there has been an overdue arrest of the perpetrator of this crime being reported.
Nothing about this story was surprising. The man was known to the girl’s family.
Most child sexual assaults are carried out by either a family member or otherwise an adult who the child trusts.
The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade late June 2022, and the horror stories are already coming out in full force.
Disgusting as this case is, the results here are not surprising. Ohio has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, and their state government has been relentless in making it harder for women to get reproductive health care.
Be prepared to hear more stories about women and girls in red states who can’t get access to emergency abortion care because they can’t travel out of state for an abortion for one reason or another.
Let’s get one thing clear going forward: a ten-year-old is in no way prepared to shoulder the responsibilities and risks of pregnancy. So if the rape of a ten-year-old results in pregnancy, the responsible thing to do is to get that child an abortion immediately—no ifs, ands, or buts.
Most importantly, ten-year-olds cannot consent to any kind of sex because they lack the understanding of what sex is. Age of consent can be tricky when discussing people aged 16 through 18 (assuming both partners are in that general age range), but there is nothing tricky about understanding that very young children can’t consent.
Even a lot of violent criminals, such as murderers, understand this. But evidently a worryingly large number of Republicans don’t.
Moreover, pregnancy is dangerous for ten-year-old girls both physically and emotionally. In the classic case of a broken clock being right twice a day, even ancient Roman physician Galen (who got much of basic human anatomy wrong) understood that pregnancy at too young an age was dangerous for girls, which is why he disliked marrying them off early, the point being that a ten-year-old’s body cannot support a pregnancy or give birth safely.
What to Do Going Forward
Some minorly good news out of Minnesota. One of our state courts recently ruled that the abortion restrictions on our state books are unconstitutional. Even better, Kansas voters of all people voted to reject constitutional protections for abortion being taken out of their state consititution.Moreover, Michigan voters have a chance to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. Make sure to spread the word about this and remind voters in Michigan of their chance to become another bastion of reproductive rights in the Midwest, alongside Minnesota and Illinois.
As for Wisconsin, the situation there is far more perilous. While Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers and Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul have made it clear that they won’t enforce the outdated 1849 law banning abortion, it depends on them winning a state that is often tricky for Democrats to win, even in good years. And 2022 is certainly not a good year for Democrats. This does not mean it will be impossible for them to win; it will just be even more difficult than 2018 was.
I will be posting more information about the abortion referendum in Michigan below, how to spread the word, and where to donate to aid this effort. It can’t be all on Minnesota and Illinois to offer reproductive health care in the Great Lakes region.
- Reproductive Freedom For All, Abortion Referendum in Michigan: Website | Donation | Facebook | Twitter
With sorrow, I can confidently say this child’s horror will not be the last in a post-Roe world.