Roe vs Wade fallout: 13-year-old girl gives birth after she was raped and denied abortion in Mississippi

In what is being dubbed as the fallout of the overturning of Roe vs Wade, a 13-year-old girl in the US state ofMississippi was forced to give birth to a boy after she was raped by a stranger. Owing to the abortion ban in the state, the girl was unable to get healthcare access and had to put her body through physical and mental torture to bring the infant into this world.

In a report published in Times magazine, the plight of the girl named Ashley (apseudonym)has been documented. Upon hearing about Ashley's pregnancy, her mother, referred to as Regina, looked for abortion clinics. The last such clinic in Mississippi was closed last year. The only alternative lay in Chicago - a nine-hour drive from their home in Clarksdale.

However, owing to the expensive nature of the travel, which would have meant taking time off work and paying hefty funds for the abortion procedure, the family took a decision - to do nothing.

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“I don’t have the funds for all this,” Regina told Time.

Notably, the teenager was raped and impregnated while she was playing in the front yard outside her home in the fall of 2022. Following the sexual assault, the girl became depressed and withdrewfrom daily activities, suggesting the attack left a lasting impact on her.

Watch |One year since Roe v. Wade was overturned

"She just said, 'It hurts'," the mom said, adding, "She was crying in her room. I asked her what was wrong, and she said she didn’t want to tell me."

It was in January earlier this year that the pregnancy was first discovered by the doctorsupon examining the girl's blood results. She was around 10 or 11 weeks pregnant at the time.

Roe vs Wade overturned

The conservative-dominated US Supreme Court in June last year declared that individual states can now legalise or restrict the procedure on their own, overturning the historic "Roe vs. Wade" ruling from 1973 that established a woman's right to an abortion.

Since the overturning, 14 state laws have gone into effect, banning abortion and snatching women's rights to their bodies, experts said.

According to experts, the US Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade goes against a global trend that has seen abortion restrictions loosen up, particularly in nations like India, Ireland, Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia where the Catholic Church continues to have significant sway.

(With inputs from agencies)

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