ohio law

What Ohio abortion law says about a pregnant 10-year-old rape victim

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The conservative effort to cast a story about a pregnant 10-year-old Ohio rape victim as a hoax has now fallen apart, with confirmation of the case arriving Wednesday. While some merely noted the initial report hadn’t been confirmed, several conservative media figures and Republican politicians went significantly further in casting it as a dirty trick meant to make the GOP’s post-Roe v. Wade laws look bad; high on that list was Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R).

But as attention now turns to the reality of the case and what it means, something else Yost claimed Monday on Fox News looms large: that the girl didn’t actually have to leave Ohio to seek the abortion in Indiana, as she reportedly did.

“Speaking of hoaxes, though, can I correct something that everybody’s reporting wrong nationally?” Yost asked the host.

He continued: “Ohio’s heartbeat law has a medical emergency exception broader than just the life of the mother. This young girl, if she exists, and if this horrible thing actually happened to her — breaks my heart to think about it — she did not have to leave Ohio to find treatment.”

Yost’s appeared to

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