All throughout the incident, opponents of abortion repeatedly cast doubt on whether or not the initial absence of any public details corroborating the Indianapolis obstetrician’s account was significant. President Biden, as well as proponents of abortion rights, pointed to the incident as evidence of the cruel consequences of the court’s decision.
According to NPR, Detective Jeffrey Huhn testified that Gerson Fuentes confessed to raping the girl at least twice. A municipal court judge in Columbus, Ohio, set bail for Fuentes at $2 million. A 27-year-old man from Columbus, Ohio, was arraigned by law enforcement officials in Franklin County. Less than 24 hours after the story was first reported by the Indianapolis Star, Ohio’s Republican Attorney General criticized the report for being anti-abortion.
The episode illustrates the high stakes of reporting on abortion, in an age of deep political mistrust and polarization, and a new legal landscape for both major news outlets.
A compelling tale based on a single source
The article did not set out any further details about the patient in Ohio that the doctor’s story had verified. The paper’s reporters were told by Dr. Bernard, a prominent obstetrician-gynecologist who is an assistant professor at Indiana University’s medical school, about a phone call from a physician in Ohio regarding child abuse. Multiple doctors were quoted in the introductory anecdote, but a single source was attributed to the story that broke in The Star on July 1st.
After six weeks, lawmakers in Ohio passed a law in 2019 that effectively banned all abortions by restricting them when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, following a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.
According to Bernard, the patient of the Ohio physician, who was 10 years old, was “six weeks and three days pregnant.”
The article told readers about a broader phenomenon where Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio enacted new restrictions on abortions, and patients seeking abortions in these states were affected. Shari Star Bernard stated, “It’s hard to imagine that we will have no ability to provide care in just a few short weeks.”
Last Friday, Biden’s impassioned remarks about abortion picked up steam in the report. It soon became part of the political fray on cable news and whipped around on social media. However, the anecdote about the 10-year-old added an emotional weight to it.
“Ten years of age — a mere 10 years! — Subjected to sexual assault, carrying a six-week-old fetus, already scarred emotionally, was compelled to journey to a different state,” Biden expressed at the White House. “She was coerced into traveling outside of her home state to Indiana in order to pursue an abortion and potentially preserve her own life.”
No complaints were lodged by medical experts, specialists in child abuse, or family members, as indicated by the article in the paper. In Ohio, any case involving sexual intercourse with a child below the age of 13 is considered rape under the law, and both Indiana and Ohio have stringent guidelines for reporting abortions and accusations of rape.
Conservative politicians challenge the story’s veracity
Glenn Kessler, a columnist for The Washington Post and the fact-checker known as “Checker,” cautioned that accepting a story as fact with only one source is not advisable. I’m sorry, but I don’t have any information to share. For example, NPR reporter Bernard declined to comment on the story, repeatedly stating that he doesn’t have any information. Glenn Kessler, a columnist for The Washington Post and the fact-checker known as “Checker,” cautioned against accepting a story as fact with only one source.
Governor Kristi Noem, a rising star in Republican circles, denounced CNN host Dana Bash for trying to trap her by asking about the incident in which the #FakeNews media began reporting that the story was fake. Conservatives who had embraced the Supreme Court’s decision stepped up their skepticism about the reporting on social media.
At the present moment, we do not have any further statement. The details and verification regarding individuals crossing state borders into Indiana, including the young girl who is ten years old, for the purpose of undergoing abortions, are evident. The executive editor of The Star, Bro Krift, shared the subsequent declaration from Gannett, the parent company’s representative for the newspaper: “When NPR requested a comment, Rudavsky directed the journalist to the corporate owners of the newspaper.”
Documentation of an abortion can be hard to come by
Many families may be cautious about the girl’s pregnancy becoming a part of the news cycle, as medical records regarding health care privacy laws are not publicly disclosed unless they are a part of a civil or criminal legal process. It is often difficult to come by official reports concerning a case involving rape and a minor, especially when it comes to documentation of an abortion for various reasons.
The rhythmic pounding of the drums persisted.
Is anyone taken aback? (He later erased the tweet.) U.S. Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio posted on Twitter, “Yet another falsehood,” on Tuesday. If the Republicans gain control of the House in the coming year, Jordan is poised to assume the position of chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
The headline of the paper, titled “An Abortion Story Too Good To Confirm,” represents the official stance of The Wall Street Journal editorial page, which referred to it as a “imaginative narrative.” Emily Compagno from Fox News, who co-hosts Outnumbered, informed viewers that abortion advocates were disregarding actual instances of sexual assault in order to advance their agenda: “What I find particularly offensive is that they had to fabricate a false one!”
In a New York Post column, Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and a contributor to Fox News, expressed that there have been several erroneous or incorrect assertions regarding abortion law and the Dobbs decision. This includes misleading claims that women may be prohibited from seeking medical care or that ectopic pregnancy treatments are now considered abortion in certain states. Turley stressed the potential danger of these false narratives as they could mislead women into thinking they are unable to access legal procedures.
An attorney general’s denunciation and then silence about The Star
Lachlan and his older son, Murdoch Rupert, each control them, and they are cousins in the corporate world. The Fox News and The Post are controlled by Murdoch Rupert. To support the claim that an Ohio girl had been raped and to present evidence, Dave Yost, the Attorney General of Ohio, whispered that there was no evidence on Monday night in Indiana.
Ohio’s Gannett newspapers informed Yost that the paper’s journalism unjustly criticized law enforcement and legal representatives who, he alleged, would have already discovered and accused the rapist if the story was accurate. Yost expanded on his statement in an interview with the USA Today Network Ohio bureau, which caters to Gannett’s newspapers in the state, including the Dispatch. (This bureau is affiliated with the Indianapolis Star.) “As time passes, it becomes increasingly probable that this is a false account,” Yost relayed to Gannett’s Ohio newspapers.
The Ohio Gannett Papers informed Yost that “there is no evidence whatsoever to support your statement of what I am saying”. It is a shame that the Indianapolis paper published this obvious attempt to grind an axe, relying solely on a single source for such a matter.
Detective Huhn’s testimony on Wednesday revealed that the Star had published an article about her unfortunate situation the day prior to the abortion in Indianapolis on June 30. This article was in reference to a complaint that the girl’s mother had reported the rape to Franklin County’s Children Services agency on June 22nd, as it transpired. The complaint was subsequently forwarded to Columbus police.
Late Wednesday evening, Caitlin Bernard, the OB-GYN at the center of the story, tweeted: “My heart breaks for all survivors of sexual assault and abuse. I am deeply saddened that our nation is failing them in their most vulnerable moments. Physicians should have the capability to provide individuals with the necessary medical treatment, precisely when and where they require it.”
Yost chose not to provide a comment to NPR and other news sources on Wednesday following Fuentes’ charges, except for the statement “We are pleased whenever a child rapist is apprehended.”
Yost did not offer any apology to the Indianapolis newspaper, even as a reference to vindicate the reporting star. Later in the afternoon, he issued a further public statement, thanking the law enforcement officers for apprehending the accused rapist and expressing heartfelt pain for the suffering endured by this young child.