In Indianapolis, Indiana, on June 30, Dr. Caitlin Bernard provided abortion medication to a 10-year-old girl. The girl had been driven 175 miles to Indianapolis from her home in Columbus, in the neighboring state of Ohio. The girl was six weeks and three days pregnant.

Abortion after six weeks had just been made illegal in Ohio. In an act of criminal, violent barbarity against a young girl, doctors in Ohio were prevented from providing a safe and legal abortion to a child in desperate and immediate need of it!

Pause and think of that for a few minutes. Imagine what is like to be a girl in fifth grade—sexually penetrated… possibly assaulted violently… learning you are pregnant… being told the doctors you were brought to couldn’t do anything to help you out of this situation because helping you would be against the law… wondering what the future holds for you… if anything. Or maybe you don’t have to imagine it, because you are one of the many who have been through this or something very similar. And you know in your bones, this shouldn’t be allowed to happen to anyone. You know we have to get to a place where shit like this is no more.

Forced Motherhood Is Female Enslavement

When news of this horror broke, waves of anger and shock swept among millions across the country. Many people have expressed that, far from being an “isolated incident,” abominations like this will almost certainly increase in the weeks and months ahead. Already, desperate women and girls from states outlawing abortion are forced to seek them elsewhere—while they are still available.

In Ohio, as in many other states, there are statutory rape laws for non-consensual sex with minors. The Ohio law states that sex with anyone under 13 is statutory rape, “whether or not the offender knows the age of the other person.” The Ohio Department of Health reported that in 2020 there were 52 abortions of girls under 15 in the state. The circumstances of those abortions are not known. But under the new Supreme Court ruling and laws like the one in Ohio, all girls who become pregnant in states that outlaw abortion will now be forced into motherhood, whatever their desires, whatever led to their pregnancy, however desperate their personal circumstances and conditions of life may be.

A Fascist Barrage of Lies and Threats

The story of a 10-year-old who had to be taken across state lines to receive an abortion quickly became national news. After Dr. Bernard was reported as the doctor who provided an abortion to a 10-year-old, fascist media, led by Fox “News” and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal,¹ launched a barrage of outright lies and contemptible, utterly false claims against her.

Foremost among them was that she lied, and an abortion probably never happened! They based this utter bullshit on the fact that the girl wasn’t named in media reports. (Actually, for years it has been common journalistic practice to not name rape victims in media reports.) After Joe Biden spoke about the girl’s rape, leading Fox fascist Tucker Carlson sneered, “Why did the Biden administration—speaking of lying—just repeat a story about a 10-year-old child who got pregnant and then got an abortion or was not allowed to get an abortion when it turns out the story’s not true?”

The big lie that there had been no rape was soon amplified by David Yost, Ohio’s Republi-fascist Attorney General. Yost went on Fox “News” on July 11 and claimed he hadn’t heard “a whisper, anywhere” about the case from prosecutors and police in Ohio. The next day he told USA TODAY that he thought Dr. Bernard’s story of abortion for a 10-year-old was likely a “fabrication."

Indiana’s Attorney General, Todd Rokita, went even further. He claimed, without providing a shred of evidence, that Dr. Bernard had “a history of failing to report abortions as required under Indiana law.” Rokita posted online a statement and a letter to Indiana’s governor, threatening Dr. Bernard with possible “criminal prosecution and licensing repercussions” if she had failed to file required reports on time. “We are investigating this situation and are waiting for the relevant documents to prove if the abortion and/or abuse were reported. … Failure to do so constitutes a crime in Indiana.”

Everyone needs to be clear on this: the persecution, slander, and threats against Dr. Bernard for performing a legal abortion are unconscionable, unacceptable, and an ominous foreboding of further attacks on medical professionals who provide abortions. They must be opposed, and she must be defended. The fact is, Dr. Bernard filed the necessary reports well within the time allowed by state law, as documents released by the Indiana Department of Health acknowledged.  Her lawyer, Kathleen DeLaney, said in a statement, “My client, Dr. Caitlin Bernard, took every appropriate and proper action in accordance with the law and both her medical and ethical training as a physician. She followed all relevant policies, procedures and regulations in this case, just as she does every day to provide the best possible care for her patients."

Foul Anti-Immigrant Venom Spews Forth

On July 12, a 27-year-old man named Gerson Fuentes was arrested in Columbus, and charged with rape of the girl. Police claim Fuentes confessed to raping the girl twice. Some news reports also claim that Fuentes is in the U.S. “illegally,” and is originally from Guatemala. There are many questions about the arrest and charging of Fuentes that remain unknown, and are beyond the scope of this article.

But the uncertainty about Fuentes hasn’t prevented fascists nationwide from unleashing a torrent of anti-immigrant venom. Jim Jordan, a leading fascist Congressman from Ohio, deleted a tweet in which he had called the initial story of rape and pregnancy “another lie”. He said he did so because an “illegal alien did this heinous crime.” Tucker Carlson, under the headline “Biden’s Abortion Story,” sneered to his millions of viewers, “Apparently, the rapist is an illegal alien.” Across the country, fascist news outlets, podcasters, “influencers,” web sites and other media picked up on this foul theme and spread it like a contagion.

Twin Pillars of U.S. Society—Patriarchy and Racist Hatred

Two deeply embedded, defining features of U.S. society—patriarchal enslavement of women, and racist hatred of immigrants—have converged into a grotesque display of fascist depravity. In a very real and immediate sense, what is happening in the conflict over this horrifying incident concentrates the society fascists are moving aggressively to implement.

This nightmare of repression and fascist patriarchal control is being put in place all across this country, right now, and only the revolutionary overthrow of this capitalist-imperialist system, and the radical transformation of society on that basis, can prevent this nightmare from becoming a reality across the U.S.