For those unfamiliar, a 10-year-old Ohio child went to Indiana to have an abortion after a man raped and impregnated her. At just over six weeks pregnant, the girl couldn’t legally have an abortion in Ohio, which now bans the procedure after six weeks. Lawmakers plan to propose a total ban soon.
The case is terrible on so many levels, including this girl being victimized by two of the state’s most prominent politicians — Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and U.S. Congressman Jim Jordan — who questioned whether the rape even occurred. I could write a column just on their callousness, but that’ll have to wait. I don’t want to distract from the question.
Why would the state force a baby to have a baby?
NBC News interviewed several pro-life lawmakers who, to their credit, noted the difficult moral and ethical dilemmas the case presents. They didn’t fall back on the tired talking points we’re all used to.
So let’s talk about the issues.
Why would the state force any rape victim — let alone a child — to carry a baby to term against her will? What’s the benefit of compounding one trauma, rape, with another, forced birth?
The World Health Organization notes that children who have babies face a number of life-threatening complications, such as eclampsia. Physicians have long established that young bodies aren’t prepared for the rigors of carrying and birthing a baby. Then there’s the painful and always-deadly condition anencephaly, a fatal malady in which the baby is born without a part of the brain or skull. Anencephaly occurs in about 1 in every 4,600 births.
What’s the benefit of forcing those women, already traumatized because they know their baby won’t live, to carry the child to term? I know the argument — protect life — but when science tells us we’re putting the young mother at risk, the logical retort becomes: Whose life?
No one really frames this issue as one of state control and force. We often hear the abortion debate as a yes/no proposition since both sides have conveniently reduced a complex problem to the most basic premise.
You can have an abortion, or you can’t.
We know those positions are outside the American mainstream and we know that most lawmakers don’t care. They listen to the powerful lobbies far more than voters.
But there are ways voters can make them listen. Groups have begun setting up clinics near state borders that allow abortion for women who want the service. Some of the biggest private businesses in the country have vowed to pay the travel expenses for their employees who want an abortion. The federal government wants to make sure pills that can induce abortion to remain available in all 50 states, though that’s less certain.
And, voters across the country — those in the mainstream — are beginning to mobilize to gather signatures for constitutional amendments, on a state-by-state basis, to codify the right to an abortion. Voters in Michigan could soon be the first state in the nation to vote on such an amendment.
While I hold out little hope of this happening, maybe cases like this will at least spur some reasonable thought and debate about what it means for the state to force a woman to have a baby against her will.
Maybe we can agree on what should be a reasonable point. The case of this little girl raises troubling issues that need answers. We can’t get those answers in the current yes/no environment. All that does is, potentially, hurt a child.
Ray Marcano’s column appears on these pages every Sunday. You can reach him at raymarcanoddn@gmail.com.
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