During a House hearing on Capitol Hill this week, an abortion rights advocate said terminating a pregnancy is not abortion when it comes to a 10-year-old rape victim.
The comment stunned the Democratic lawmaker questioning her.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists defines abortion as “a medical intervention provided to individuals who need to terminate a medically induced pregnancy.”
“Wait, that wouldn’t be an abortion?” said Congressman Eric Swalwell, D-Calif.
Catherine Glenn Foster, head of the anti-abortion group Americans United for Life, told Swalwell she doesn’t think so.
“If a 10-year-old child with her parents decided not to have a baby that was the result of rape, if a 10-year-old child became pregnant as a result of rape and it endangered her life, then that’s not abortion,” Foster said. before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
Catherine Glenn Foster, president and CEO of Americans United for Life, speaks during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill July 14, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Thassos Katopodis/Getty Images
Around the same time as the testimony of Foster, the top lawyer for the National Right to Life Committee, there was a decidedly different take.
In a phone interview with Politico, James Bopp said the girl should have been forced to carry the pregnancy to term under the model legislation he wrote last June as the NRLC’s general counsel. This legislation is used by states to enact restrictions on abortion.
“She was going to have the baby, and as many women who have had babies as a result of rape, hopefully she will understand the reason and ultimately the benefit of having the child,” Bopp quoted.
Bopp did not respond to requests for an interview.
After spending decades united in the quest to overturn Roe v. Wade, the conservative movement is facing tough questions about what it means to oppose abortion.
Should there be exceptions for rape and incest? Does the age of the victim matter? What does it mean to protect “mother’s life”? How imminent must death be before a doctor can legally intervene?
Other questions: Should states pass laws preventing women from traveling out of state for abortions? Should they ban IUDs and emergency contraceptives as Plan B?
Conservatives lauding the Supreme Court’s ruling say those details should be decided by state voters. Abortion rights supporters say the rights to liberty and privacy should not be decided by voters, but are guaranteed in the constitution.
“In case we’ve forgotten, this is what democracy looks like,” said Rep. Michelle Fischbach, R-Minn., in defense of the Supreme Court decision.
But no case has challenged the anti-abortion movement more than the rape of a 10-year-old Ohio girl.
After the arrest of a 27-year-old man in her case, a detective testified in court this week that the girl became pregnant as a result of the rape and traveled to Indianapolis to have an abortion. Ohio has banned abortions after heart activity is detected, which is about six weeks into the pregnancy. The state does not provide for exceptions in cases of rape or incest.
Indiana’s Republican attorney general said he plans to investigate the doctor who helped the girl get an abortion. An attorney representing Dr. Caitlin Bernard said she followed reporting procedures, and Indiana University Health said an investigation found she followed privacy laws.
Several Republican politicians, including Congressman Jim Jordan, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, questioned whether the case was fabricated for political reasons. Jordan did not mention the case in his questioning at Thursday’s hearing, instead talking about violent attacks on anti-abortion pregnancy centers.
Jennifer Holland, a history professor at the University of Oklahoma, said she thinks conservatives struggle to talk about the rape of such a young victim because they’ve never had to before.
“For 50 years, the focus has been as much on the fruit as possible,” she said. “They chose never to consider hard cases. Now that they have the power of the state, it is very different.
Daniel Williams, a University of West Georgia history professor who studies politics and religion, said support among conservatives for the rape and incest exemptions has changed over time. In this case, the leaders of the anti-abortion rights movement probably weren’t prepared for such a case to face so soon after Roe v. Wade was overturned, he said.
“However, I doubt it will be a significant impediment to traffic,” Williams said. “At most, it might lead some conservative states considering abortion bans to consider including a rape (or) incest exception clause, but even that is uncertain.” But we’re in uncharted territory here, so it’s hard to make predictions about future developments.”
Sarah Warbelow, the legal director of the Human Rights Campaign, said it was misinformation to suggest that an abortion would not be an abortion for a 10-year-old rape victim.
“Abortion is a medical procedure. It’s a medical procedure that people undergo under a wide range of circumstances, including because they’ve been sexually assaulted, raped in the case of the 10-year-old,” she said.
ABC News medical staff Dr. Rachel Boren contributed to this report.
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