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President Joe Biden delivers remarks on reproductive rights as Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra listen at the White House on July 8.
Photo:
Alex Wong/Getty Images
All kinds of fanciful tales travel far on social media these days, but you don’t expect them to get a hearing at the White House. That’s nonetheless what seems to have happened Friday as President Biden signed an executive order on abortion.
With Vice President
and Health and Human Services Secretary
Xavier Becerra
nearby, Mr. Biden repeated a tale making the rounds on social media in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overrule Roe v. Wade. He said a 10-year-old girl he didn’t identify by name was forced to travel from Ohio to Indiana to have an abortion because Ohio now prohibits abortion after a fetal heartbeat is discovered. The girl had been raped, he said, and Ohio law now includes no abortion exceptions in cases of rape or incest.
Mr. Biden grew agitated as he spoke: “Ten years old. Raped, six weeks pregnant. Already traumatized. Was forced to travel to another state. Imagine being that little girl. Just—I’m serious—just imagine being that little girl.”
Imagine, indeed. The tale is a potent post-Roe tale of woe for those who want to make abortion a voting issue this fall. One problem: There’s no evidence the girl exists. PJ Media’s
Megan Fox
was 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 Indianapolis Star piece headlined, “Patients head to Indiana for abortion services as other states restrict care.”
Caitlin Bernard,
an obstetrician-gynecologist, told the paper’s medical reporter that after the Ohio ban went into effect she’d fielded a call about the girl from a “child abuse doctor” in the Buckeye State. The 10-year-old soon “was on her way to Indiana to Bernard’s care.” Presumably Dr. Bernard performed an abortion.
Medical professionals have a duty to report child rape to law enforcement, but Dr. Bernard won’t say where the alleged crime occurred or identify the Ohio doctor who referred the case. Ohio Attorney General
Dave Yost
told Fox News on Monday that his office had heard “not a whisper” of such a crime from prosecutors, police and sheriffs in his state. You may not be surprised to learn that Dr. Bernard has a long history of abortion activism in the media.
What we seem to have here is a presidential seal of approval on an unlikely story from a biased source that neatly fits the progressive narrative but can’t be confirmed. The abortion debate is intense and passions run high. But the American people deserve better from their President than an unproven story designed to aggravate those passions.
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the July 13, 2022, print edition.
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