A 10-year-old girl who was raped and impregnated was forced to leave her home state of Ohio to get an abortion.
News of the girl's situation came three days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which has protected a woman's right to abortion since the 1970s, the Indianapolis Star Tribune reported.
Due to Ohio's six-week abortion ban, which went into effect just hours after the Supreme Court action, the girl was denied an abortion in the Buckeye state and forced to travel to Indiana to have the procedure.
As for Indiana, abortion is legal -- for now. A special session regarding a bill that could restrict the procedure is scheduled for later this month.
The decision to have the 10-year-old leave the state came after a child abuse pediatrician in Ohio contacted a gynecologist in Indiana, which has been fielding an increase in calls from neighboring states where the procedures are now restricted or banned.
Dr. Katie McHugh, an independent obstetrician-gynecologist in central and southern Indiana, told the Star Tribune that clinics used to get five to eight out-of-state patients a day but now, they're seeing about 20 such patients daily.
"We are doing the best we can to increase availability and access as long as we can, knowing that this will be a temporary time frame that we can offer that assistance," McHugh said.
Meantime, several antiabortion groups and allies in Republican-led state legislatures are working to draft potential legislation that would restrict people from crossing state lines for abortions, The Washington Post reported.
"Just because you jump across a state line doesn't mean your home state doesn't have jurisdiction. It’s not a free abortion card when you drive across the state line," Peter Breen, vice president of conservative legal organization the Thomas More Society, told The Post.
Those advocates are likely looking at a long shot, according to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. In a concurring opinion on the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Kavanaugh said laws preventing interstate travel for abortion would be unconstitutional.
"May a state bar a resident of that state from traveling to another state to obtain an abortion? In my view, the answer is no based on the constitutional right to interstate travel," he wrote.
At least 26 states are certain or likely to ban abortion following the reversal of Roe V. Wade, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
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