Ohio AG: There’s No ‘Whisper’ Of Proof For Supposed 10-Year-Old Rape Victim Who Traveled Out Of State For Abortion

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said during an interview with Jesse Watters on Fox News Monday night that a police report has not been filed regarding the viral story about a 10-year-old girl who was allegedly raped and impregnated and then fled to Indiana to get an abortion due to the restrictive laws in her home state.

In fact, according to Yost, there is “not a whisper” of a police investigation nor any corroborating evidence for the single-source story.

The Indiana Star broke the original story based on second-hand testimony from Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an OB-GYN, abortionist, and outspoken pro-abortion activist, who claimed she received a call from a doctor in Ohio who treats child-abuse victims. The anonymous Ohio doctor said the 10-year-old was ineligible for an abortion in her home state and needed to go to Indiana to receive an abortion immediately.

Even before Yost’s comment, the credibility of the story was suspect. For instance, it lacked important details, such as the identity of the Ohio doctor or whether that doctor even reported what would have been the crime of rape.

“We work closely with the decentralized law enforcement system in Ohio, but we have regular contact with prosecutors and local police and sheriffs,” Yost said. “Not a whisper anywhere.”

Yost added that his office runs the state crime lab, and no request for DNA analysis from a rape kit was filed matching this story. He also said that in Ohio, the rape of a minor means life in prison and that there’s not one prosecutor or police officer in the state who wouldn’t be turning over “every rock in their jurisdiction if they had the slightest hint that this occurred.”

In other words, either the Ohio doctor broke state law by neglecting to report the rape of a child to police, or Bernard — the abortionist and activist who told the story to The Indiana Star — fabricated the whole story to advance the left’s abortion goals.

If the latter is true, it worked. National media outlets including The Hill, The Guardian, and Newsweek ran with the story without verifying the claims. And even President Joe Biden cited the alleged incident as fact during his push to federally codify Roe — or, in other words, legalize abortion for any reason in every state through all nine months of pregnancy.

Bernard, a person who has not been shy of the press, has gone radio silent when asked for comment or an interview from multiple outlets on this story.

A viral Twitter thread from journalist Megan Fox went in-depth about the many red flags the story presents. Meanwhile, Washington Post “fact-checker” Glenn Kessler’s takeaway was: “This is a very difficult story to check…” but “the story has acquired the status of a ‘fact’ no matter its provenance. If a rapist is ever charged, the fact finally would have more solid grounding.”

Elise McCue is an intern at The Federalist and student majoring in multimedia journalism and professional and technical writing. She also reports on the Southwest Virginia music scene for The Roanoke Times. You can follow her on twitter @elisemccue or contact her at [email protected]

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