amelia robinson is the opinion and community engagement editor for the Columbus Dispatch. Twitter @1AmeliaRobinson
For a long time it was easy to miss the skinny girl who lived down the street from my Aunt Cathy in cleveland in the 1990s.
The girl was only 11 years old and could not weigh more than 80 pounds.
I was already in my teens and was only in the city during breaks from my studies at Ohio University.
People may have missed her at first, but no one could miss the girl as her belly got fatter and fatter.
As she did, the whispers grew louder and a man was accused of raping her.
Plus: Opinions in your inbox: Get exclusive access to our columnists and the best of our columns
He was eventually convicted of a lesser charge and the girl, I was told, had a spontaneous abortion.
His ordeal was clearly not over.
She got pregnant over and over again by I can’t imagine who.
She was a teenager the last time I saw her. A child was on each of her narrow hips. One hugged her around her waist.
The case of the girl from Columbus sheds light on a dark subject
The memory of that skinny girl popped into my head when the news that the girl from Ohio taken to Indiana for an abortion was from here.
The story of the 11-year-old girl was not about abortion, but that like the 10-year-old girl from Colón, she was the victim of a predator and failed by a society that refuses to see the reality of child sexual abuse.
columbus resident gerson fonts He was arrested and charged with rape after police said he confessed to raping the 10-year-old girl at least twice.
Plus: Letters: My 10-year-old granddaughter likes unicorns. Ohio would force her to give birth
Her abortion, which received international attention, came after the Supreme Court ruled that people do not have a constitutional right to have an abortion and Ohio’s so-called heartbeat bill went into effect.
Until Fuentes’s arrest, the all-too-real fact that a real girl from Ohio was raped was challenged by politicians who knew better, but acted worse than anyone with a beating heart should.
Plus: Arrest made for rape of Ohio girl leading to abortion in Indiana drew international attention
They know that innocent children are victimized in our city, in our state, and in our country.
That is not a secret.
The Centers for Disease Control says at least one in four girls and one in 13 boys experience childhood sexual abuse.
Too often, once is too often and we know it happens more than once. the raped person to motherhood is a minor.
‘Do we even understand her small body?’
–
–
Tara Seward is well aware that minors can become pregnant after rape. She was well over 10 years old when she succeeded him, but still she left a scar that she still feels.
Having graduated from high school early, Seward left Dublin for The Ohio State University at age 16.
She was raped by an acquaintance, a popular student athlete she met through a friend, a short time later. Seward said she didn’t even tell her close friends after the attack and, like many victims, she never reported it to police.
A girl rail learned she was pregnant eight weeks after the assault and had an abortion after discussing options with her mother.
Plus: Do 10-year-olds meet the ‘mother’s life’ abortion exemptions? Ohio lawmakers, doctors divided
Seward is now the mother of four children and has served as a surrogate mother for two infertile couples. Having had several pregnancies, including a miscarriage that required a D&C to remove the fetus, she knows how complicated and painful reproduction can be at any age.
––
–
When she heard about the 10-year-old Columbus girl, Seward said she thought about her own 10-year-old daughter and what would happen if her girl was raped and became pregnant.
“And what does that mean?” she asked her rhetorically. “Do we even understand the small body of him?”
Girls can start having periods as early as 8 years old. according to the Mayo Clinic.
They are starting earlier at the national level. A 2020 CDC report found that the average age for the onset of menstruation fell from 12.1 in 1995 to 11.9 between 2013 and 2017.
Seward says she shouldn’t have to give her little girl birth control pills to protect her from the possibility of being forced to have a child by a rapist.
Hundreds of pregnant girls have had abortions
––
–
Seward said a woman or girl shouldn’t have to divulge their reproductive history or expose the most traumatic experience of their life to avoid having children from an attacker.
But as it stands, doing so wouldn’t change anything.
The state’s new abortion law does not have an exemption for pregnant girls or mental disabilities.
There are no exemptions for rape or incest, and as my colleagues at the USA TODAY Network’s Ohio Bureau have just reported, Republican lawmakers in Ohio those who control the state have no plans to change that.
There is much debate among doctors, lawyers, and legislators about under what circumstances an abortion can be performed if the pregnancy poses “a serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function” or the death of the pregnant person.
Plus: Ohio Republican lawmakers have no plans to exempt rape and incest from abortion ban
Plus: Do 10-year-olds meet the ‘mother’s life’ abortion exemptions? Ohio lawmakers, doctors divided
A 2018 study by CDC researchers found that nearly 3 million women in the US experienced a rape-related pregnancy during their lifetime.
The data was not disaggregated by age. We may not know how many child rape victims have become pregnant, but we do know that little girls have had abortions in this state.
In 2020, Ohio Department of Health says 521 minors received abortions in Ohio. That includes 52 who were under the age of 15.
For that age group, there were 63 such procedures in 2019, 54 in 2018, 61 in 2017 and 76 in 2016.
The maximum of 10 years has arrived in 2010, when 182 abortions were performed on girls under the age of 15.
Plus: Monstrous lies about 10-year-old girl’s abortion show ‘pure cowardice’ | opinionnorte
el CDC says 5.2% of women raped by an acquaintance became pregnant compared to nearly 7% raped by strangers and 26% raped by a current or former intimate partner.
Seward, member of positively blue — a progressive group made up of Dublin mothers that seeks to get women more involved in their communities and in politics — said she didn’t even tell her best friends about the rape until long after the attack. Seward wondered if she should have fought harder.
It took her years to get to the point where she could forgive herself for the abortion even though she is strongly in favor of abortion and knows it was the right decision.
He graduated from Ohio State in 2004 with a degree in Mathematics and has a good job.
“I am where I am because of all the things that have happened in my life. I wouldn’t change a thing right now,” Seward said.
Amelia Robinson is the opinion and community engagement editor for the Columbus Dispatch. Twitter @1AmeliaRobinson
––
–
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Amelia Robinson: Girls get pregnant after being raped
–
