10-Year-Old Rape Victim Denied Abortion In US Following Supreme Court Decision
A pregnant child who was the victim of rape was not allowed an abortion in her home state following the Supreme Court decision.
A 10-year-old victim of rape was denied an abortion in her home state after the US Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v Wade.
The state of Ohio changed its laws to make abortions after six weeks illegal mere hours after the Supreme Court's controversial ruling.
It was one of the states to enforce a 'trigger ban' on a woman's right to an abortion in the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court's decision.
Around half of US states are expected to pass laws heavily restricting abortion rights to very specific circumstances or outright banning them altogether, though there are still a number of states in the US which did not repeal women's rights and freedoms.
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Ohio's state law bans abortion after cardiac activity in the foetus can be detected, which is usually at around six weeks of pregnancy, and often before a woman knows she is pregnant.
The child was said to be six weeks and three days pregnant, and had to travel across state lines to neighbouring Indiana for an abortion, Cincinnati.com reports, after a doctor in Indianapolis took a call from a child abuse doctor in Ohio.
These laws have been pushed by anti-abortion advocates across the US but their efforts had been blocked by the courts, which upheld Roe v Wade's judgment that the constitution protected a woman's liberty to have an abortion.
The situation for many women in the US changed overnight following the Supreme Court's verdict, and emergency contraceptive pills have reportedly been stockpiled by women who have suddenly found themselves without the rights and freedoms that protected them for decades.
According to Time, a number of states are setting themselves up as 'safe havens' for women who need abortions but have been stripped of that right in their home state.
States on the west coast, the north east, Colorado, Illinois and the capital city of Washington DC have laws that protect abortion rights.
For some anti-abortion groups the next step is cracking down on these safe havens by blocking patients from crossing state lines for an abortion.
The Washington Post reports that some groups are calling for new laws that would stop people who live in states with bans on abortions from seeking one in another US state where they would legally be allowed to get one.
If they succeed then it's possible that the 10-year-old rape victim would have risked legal punishment for journeying from Ohio to Indiana for an abortion.
Some pro-abortion states such as New Jersey are introducing legislation to protect women who cross state lines for an abortion from facing punishment in their home state.
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Joe Harker