Speaker 1: A ten year old girl is now being denied an abortion in Ohio and is going to
have to travel across state lines in order to get an abortion because of a pregnancy
that resulted from a rape.
Now, a few people e-mailed me last week saying, you know, David, you played this clip of the
speaker of the House of Mississippi saying I would be against an abortion, even for a
12 year old made pregnant by her own father.
And some of you wrote to me and said that was such a meaningless clip, David, because
it's a hypothetical.
That's just that guy's opinion.
There is no such situation.
And his opinion isn't the law in Mississippi anyway, so it doesn't matter.
Well, these are relevant hypotheticals because they do happen.
And here is a non hypothetical.
A non.
This is a real story.
The Hill reports ten year old girl denied abortion in Ohio.
A ten year old girl was denied an abortion in Ohio after the Supreme Court ruled last
week that it was overturning Roe v Wade, demonstrating the tangible impacts that the high court's
decision is having on patients seeking access to the medical procedure.
A child.
This is a horrible, horrible story.
A child abuse doctor in Ohio contacted Dr. Caitlin Bernhardt Barnard, an obstetrician
gynecologist in Indiana, after receiving a ten year old patient.
Six weeks and three days pregnant.
The patient is now heading west to Indiana.
Given that an abortion ban in Ohio, which prohibits the medical procedure when fetal
cardiac activity begins around six weeks, had become effective quickly after the high
court issued its decision.
Several groups filed a lawsuit seeking to block the state law from taking effect.
On Wednesday, an emergency stay of the abortion ban was rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court
Friday, meaning the ban can be upheld as the case is reviewed.
Ohio is among a number of states that have rolled back abortion access since the Supreme
Court eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion.
Some laws have been paused pending legal challenges, but Indiana could soon find itself passing
its own abortion law later this month, given that a special session has been scheduled
for later in July.
So understand what is going on here.
We have had all sorts of different laws around the country over the last 50 years, quite
frankly, the Roe v Wade era and in fact, longer.
There are leftover laws from before the Roe v Wade era that were effectively.
What's the castrated?
I don't know, the right where they were.
They were sort of like kneecapped, for lack of a better term, because of Roe v Wade.
So there are preexisting laws that just weren't really enforced because of Roe v Wade.
You then had other laws passed during the Roe v Wade era, some of which were sort of
like inactive because of Roe v Wade, others which were actually struck down.
And then you had some states that have what are called trigger laws, where they say if
Roe v Wade is suspended or overturned, then this law goes into effect.
And some of them happened immediately.
And in some places they were being temporarily stopped during the review of the law and in
some places they are in place.
So here is a non hypothetical and the reaction from some is, well, we should be more concerned
with how the ten year old got pregnant in the first place, not about giving people abortion
on demand.
Well, but hold on a second.
She is pregnant right now.
And in fact, any delay for her reduces the number of places where she can legally get
an abortion.
Right.
If you can get if if the idea is, well, it's too late in Ohio, but you can go to Indiana.
I don't know the law in Indiana.
Off the top of my head.
But imagine that in Indiana, you can go until nine weeks.
Well, if you can delay her two and a half weeks now, she can't get the abortion in Indiana
while we figure out how did she get pregnant in the first place.
You need to be concerned both about how this happened and how to deal with the aftermath.
And forcing a pregnancy on a ten year old is not going to help her trauma.
Now, is this what what Republicans want?
Is this the country that Republicans want will know they would say we would prevent
the rape pregnancy to begin with.
That was one from Texas in Texas when Texas passed its law at this point.
Was it a few months ago?
Maybe a year ago?
I'm not sure.
And Greg Abbott was asked, well, what about, you know, victims of rape who end up pregnant
or children, victims of rape?
And he said, well, we're this is Texas.
We're going to prevent rape.
Right.
Well, even a very well-functioning criminal justice system is not particularly good at
preventing crime, criminal justice systems.
Okay.
You look at large scale frauds of different kinds and extortions.
Sometimes you can prevent crime.
But when it comes to street crime and when it comes to rape and when it comes to murder,
in a lot of these different things, law enforcement is not particularly good at preventing crime.
We can we can look at policy that would reduce the amount of that crime.
But the idea that Texas police are going to prevent these scenarios from ever happening,
it's absurd.
And of course, it doesn't work and doesn't happen.
So I would say to them, well, how are you going to do that?
Here we have a situation.
This is exactly what we've been talking about.
Last week it was a hypothetical about a 12 year old placed to the Mississippi speaker
of the House.
Oh, but, David, that's a that's a hypothetical.
Well, here we've got a real one.
And now this ten year old has to leave Ohio.
Is it better for.
I mean, listen, ultimately, she's going to get the abortion.
It may already have happened.
It's been a few days, you know, over the holiday weekend.
Is it better for her to have to go to Indiana and leave Ohio because of the law?
Doesn't seem like it.
And by the way, there are Republicans asked about this who aren't even saying, no, no,
no, no, it would be totally different in our state.
Let's talk about
that next.