On July 1, 2022,
The Indianapolis Star reported that a ten-year-old girl who had been raped traveled from Ohio to Indiana to have an abortion. Some right-leaning politicians and media sources initially called the story a hoax; an opinion piece by
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board said "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". Speaking of
Caitlin Bernard, the doctor who performed the abortion,
Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler analyzed that "The story quickly caught fire, becoming a headline in newspapers around the world. News organizations increasingly "aggregate" — or repackage — reporting from elsewhere if it appears of interest to readers. So Bernard remained the only source — and other news organizations did not follow up to confirm her account" and concluded, "This is a very difficult story to check. Bernard is on the record, but obtaining documents or other confirmation is all but impossible without details that would identify the locality where the rape occurred". Furthermore, "Dan Tierney, press secretary for Ohio Gov.
Mike DeWine (R), said the governor's office was unaware of any specific case but he said under the state's decentralized system, records would be held at a local level. Thus, he said, it would be hard to confirm a report without knowing the local jurisdiction to narrow the search". After news of the arrest of the alleged rapist validated the
Star story,
Kelly McBride, a media ethics expert at the Poynter Institute said that journalists needed to report and "not just put more opinions out without any more additional facts". Ohio Congressman
Jim Jordan cited Yost in tweet, stating that the claim was "another lie", and then later deleted the tweet.
James Bopp, the general counsel for the
National Right to Life Committee, said in an interview that the girl should have been legally forced to carry her pregnancy to full term and then give birth, and that "She would have had the baby, and as many women who have had babies as a result of rape, we would hope that she would understand the reason and ultimately the benefit of having the child". Bopp's comment led to ire from several left-leaning politicians and media sources, deriding
Dobbs and the stance taken by the right.
Governor of South Dakota Kristi Noem also commented on the case, saying that "I don't believe a tragic situation should be perpetuated by another tragedy". Previously, Noem had labeled the case in a tweet "Literal #FakeNews from the liberal media." Yost, despite his initial doubts about the case, applauded the arrest of the alleged rapist. Yost also asserted at that time that Ohio law on the matter had been misconstrued, and that the girl could have received an abortion in the state if a treating physician deemed it a medical emergency, even if it was not life-threatening. Yost revisited his comments on the case in December 2022, following his reelection, stating his regrets that "what I said was not what people heard, and what people heard created a lot of pain", and describing himself as having "nothing in my heart but compassion and grief for what that little girl went through". In an interview with
NPR, Ohio senator
JD Vance stated that the case was one of the instances where "reasonable exceptions" should be made to abortion bans. In April 2023, the head of Cincinnati Right to Life, Laura Strietmann, commented that the girl should have been forced to give birth, explaining that although "a pregnancy might have been difficult on a 10-year-old body, a woman's body is designed to carry life," and that abortion rights should not be brought to a public vote. Despite Strietmann's argument,
a vote was held in November 2023 which amended the
Constitution of Ohio to protect abortion rights. ==Indiana investigations and lawsuits==