As more states restrict or ban abortion, more girls who are raped will face a choice between crossing state lines for care or having babies while they are still in elementary school.
I wish that this weren’t true. But events this week make it very clear that if you can’t bear to believe it — even if it seems so impossible that it needs a heartily skeptical fact-checking treatment — it is going to happen.
And reporters who want to tell these stories (and the news organizations those reporters work for) may have to abandon some conventional journalism wisdom in order to give the stories the attention they deserve.
Last week, in response to the Supreme Court’s vote to strike down Roe v. Wade, President Joe Biden signed an executive order in an attempt to protect abortion access. In remarks at the time, Biden said, “Just last week, it was reported that a 10-year-old girl was a rape victim — 10 years old — and she was forced to have to travel out of state to Indiana to seek to terminate the pregnancy and maybe save her life.” The story he was citing was published by the Indianapolis Star on July 1.
— source niemanlab.org | Laura Hazard Owen | Jul 13, 2022