How Focusing on Rape-or-Incest Exceptions Distorts the Abortion Debate

The horrifying case of a 10-year-old Ohio rape victim who crossed the border to Indiana for an abortion understandably attracted national attention. According to her doctor, the girl was six weeks and three days into her pregnancy. That put her beyond the window allowed by an Ohio law that prohibits abortion after fetal cardiac activity can be detected, which typically happens around six weeks. Ohio’s ban makes an exception for a “medical emergency” but not for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.

Such cases pose moral challenges to both opponents and supporters of abortion rights. Pro-life advocates who favor laws like Ohio’s must confront the disturbing implications of forcing women and girls to bear their attackers’ children. Pro-choice advocates, meanwhile, must contend with the counterargument that abortion in such circumstances compounds the original crime by victimizing another innocent person.

It was not hard to predict which side The New York Times would take in this debate. But a Times story published on Saturday, headlined “What New Abortion Bans Mean for the Youngest Patients,” misleadingly conflates the issue of rape-or-incest exceptions, which rarely apply, with the much broader issue of abortions obtained for other reasons.

The Times story begins with the Ohio case: “She was just 10 years old, so young that many people were horrified when they heard it, and others refused to believe it. But the ordeal of the child rape victim in Ohio who had to cross state lines for an abortion, and the ugly political fight that followed, have highlighted two uncomfortable facts.”

One of those “facts” seems incontrovertible: “New abortion bans are likely to have a pronounced impact on the youngest pregnant girls.” But the other “fact” is much more dubious: “Such pregnancies are not as rare as people think.”

Given the context, readers will tend to assume that Times reporters Dana Goldstein and Ava Sasani are talking about cases similar to the one they have just described. That impression is reinforced in the second paragraph, which focuses on rape-or-incest exceptions.

“New bans in nearly a dozen states do not make exceptions for rape or incest, leaving young adolescents—already among the most restricted in their abortion options—with less access to the procedure,” Goldstein and Sasani write. “Even in states with exemptions for rape and incest, requirements involving police reports and parental consent can be prohibitive for children and teenagers.”

The third paragraph also focuses on cases like the one in Ohio. “The situation out of Ohio is in no way unique,” Indiana obstetrician-gynecologist Katie McHugh, a board member of Physicians for Reproductive Health, tells the Times. “This is a situation that every abortion provider has seen before.”

But the rest of the story ranges far beyond that issue. Based on 2017 data collected by the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute, Goldstein and Sasani note, “there were 4,460 pregnancies among girls under 15, with about 44 percent ending in abortion.” That amounts to 1,962 abortions in this age group, or about 0.2 percent of the total in 2017.

As The Washington Post notes, “abortions performed on patients younger than 15 in the country are extremely rare.” And as Goldstein and Sasani concede, “It is unclear how often these pregnancies are the result of incest or rape.” While “children in this age group are generally below the age of sexual consent,” they note, “sexual contact b