Ohio Man Indicted For Raping 9-Year-Old Who Was Forced To Travel To Indiana For Abortion

Topline

An Ohio grand jury indicted Gerson Fuentes on two counts of rape on Friday, for allegedly assaulting and impregnating a 9-year-old girl, who was forced by the state’s ban on abortion to travel to Indiana to terminate her pregnancy, a case that has sparked a national outcry in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Pro-abortion protesters in Ohio. (Photo by Stephen Zenner/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Key Facts

Fuentes, a 27-year-old Guatemala native, is scheduled to be arraigned Monday.

Fuentes, who was arrested last week in Columbus, Ohio, and charged with a felony offense, has confessed to raping the girl, who is now 10, on at least two ocassions.

The girl traveled to Indiana for a legal abortion, after she was denied an abortion in Ohio under the state’s six-week abortion ban, which does not include an exception for rape.

Key Background

The case has become a focus of anger for abortion rights activists as state abortion bans have come into effect in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization last month. A number of Republicans initially questioned the veracity of the girl’s story when it first was reported–Ohio AG Dave Yost told Fox News he hadn’t seen a “whisper” of evidence to support it–only to backtrack after Fuentes’ arrest. Indiana Attorney General Rokita came under fire earlier this week and now faces an ethics complaint and possible investigation for launching a probe of the doctor who performed the abortion on the rape victim.

Tangent

Indiana lawmakers proposed an abortion ban last week with limited exceptions, including rape, incest and cases that would endanger the mother.

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Key Background

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