Doctors: Attorney General's 'blatant denial of facts' victimized 10-year-old who was raped

Ohio attorney general's further victimized 10-year-old girl

Dr. Marcela Azevedo,Dr. Lauren Beene, Dr. Stephanie Pope and the Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights

We are appalled that the Ohio Attorney General Yost questioned the rape of a 10-year-old Ohio child and then claimed the Ohio “Heartbeat law” allows abortion in case of rape and incest.

His statements are either disingenuous or ignorant of the law he supported, which has no such exceptions.

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Now, her rapist has been arrested and has confessed to the crime but this child was forced to leave her home state for basic medical care.  This horrifying situation is a direct consequence of our representatives enacting legislation from a place of misinformation and biased personal belief.

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Even though one in four women will have an abortion in their lifetime, the topic is stigmatized and politicized. As in this case, there were more than 50 abortions for children 14 and under in the state of Ohio in 2020.

The current Ohio restrictions, and proposed House Bill 598 and House Bill 704, will have deleterious effects unimaginable to legislators unfamiliar with the complexities of pregnancy.

If a patient’s water breaks when the fetus is not viable and pregnancy loss is inevitable— should they be forced to wait until there are signs of severe infection before we complete the miscarriage?

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If personhood is defined in Ohio as beginning at conception, will patients need to travel out of state to undergo fertility treatments such as IVF? Will patients die of massive infection as a result of self-induced instrumentation?

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Will patients who need chemotherapy, immunosuppression, and other medications suffer due to physicians’ and pharmacists’ fears of criminalization with the use of fetus-harming medications?

It is each individual person who is best positioned to make these difficult decisions for their own bodies, health and future - not the government.

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We are ashamed of the blatant denial of facts and further victimization of a child by the attorney general. We urge our fellow Ohioans to call our representatives every week and tell them to reject House Bill 598 and House Bill 704, which if passed, would completely ban abortion in Ohio.

If we proceed to even more restrictive laws, more Ohioans, including children, will needlessly suffer.

Dr. Marcela Azevedo, Dr. Lauren Beene, Dr. Stephanie Pope and the Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Letter: Dave Yost's comments on 10-year-old girl who got abortion ignorant