Girl, 13, who didn't know where 'babies came from' denied abortion in Mississippi after rape
A 13-year-old girl who became pregnant after she was raped by a stranger in her front garden last autumn was denied an abortion under Mississippi’s statewide ban.
Ashley, not her real name, was discovered to be up to 11 weeks pregnant when she first had an ultrasound following the attack.
She was aged 12 at the time of the rape, which took place outside her family home while her uncle and siblings were indoors.
Her mother, Regina, also a pseudonym used by Time magazine, said an unknown man had entered the garden, grabbed Ashley and covered her mouth before sexually assaulting her at the side of the property.
She said her daughter did not tell anybody about the incident, but became reclusive after the attack and began vomiting.
“I asked her what was wrong, and she said she didn’t want to tell me,” she said.
Regina said she had not explained to Ashley how a baby is made prior to the assault, as she did not believe her daughter was old enough to understand.
‘This will always hurt’
“This situation hurts the most because it was an innocent child doing what children do, playing outside, and it was my child. It still hurts, and is going to always hurt,” she said.
In January this year, Ashley was throwing up so violently that her mother took her to the emergency department. After an analysis of her blood indicated she was pregnant, the hospital contacted the police.
Dr Erica Balthrop, the on-call gynaecologist who first saw Ashley, told Time: “She just had no clue - it was surreal for her.”
Regina said she could not afford the costs associated with travelling to the closest abortion provider, which she was told would be 600 miles away in Chicago - a nine hour’s drive from the family home in Clarksdale.
Ashley gave birth at 39 weeks which she said was “painful.” The 13-year-old is due to start seventh grade soon.
Her case marks the latest high-profile example of the impact of the US supreme court’s decision last year to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade ruling from nearly 50 years ago, which guaranteed the right to abortion at a national level.
Rare exceptions
Mississippi, which has the second-highest maternal mortality rate in America, grants exceptions to its near-total abortion ban in the case of rape and to save the life of a mother.
However, such exemptions are believed to be extremely rare in practice. The New York Times reported in January that only two exceptions had been granted since Mississippi’s abortion law took effect in July 2022.
There are no official abortion providers left operating in the state following last year’s move.
The state attorney general’s office did not reply to Time’s requests to clarify the process for granting exceptions. The Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure and the Mississippi State Medical Association also failed to comment.
Time reported that, in any case, Regina did not know there was an exception for rape.
Prior to the court ruling, Regina could have been directed to an abortion provider in Memphis, roughly 90 minutes north of her hometown.
