“My office runs the state crime lab,” Yost explained on Monday night. “Any case like this, you’re going to have a rape kit. You’re going to have biological evidence, and you would be looking for DNA analysis, which — we do most of the DNA analysis in Ohio. There is no request for analysis that looks anything like this.” If the originating doctor in Ohio exists and failed to report the child’s abuse to state authorities, “it is a crime.”
Yost added that the story of the 10-year-old fleeing the state seems doubly dubious, since Ohio’s heartbeat law would likely allow her to have an abortion. The amended legal code permits abortions after six weeks to save the mother’s life “or to prevent a serious risk of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.” He noted, “This young girl, if she exists and if this horrible thing actually happened to her … did not have to leave Ohio.”
Several other Ohio authorities had already put the story under a cloud of suspicion. A spokesman for Governor Mike DeWine (R) said the office had no knowledge of any case like this one, and child protection agencies in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, and Toledo reported they know nothing of the assault. When asked for specific details that would allow reporters to verify her story, Bernard told The Washington Post’s fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, “Thank you for reaching out. I’m sorry, but I don’t have any information to share.”
Although the single-source story went viral in the legacy media, independent journalists cast substantial doubt on the story from the outset. A 10-year-old rape victim who crossed the state’s legal abortion limit the same day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade combined all the heart-tugging elements of a poorly written Hollywood drama, or every abortion activist’s cliché rolled into one.