
States with strict abortion bans say they make exceptions for rape and incest. Advocates say survivors can’t access them
CNN
“When I was five, I began getting sexually abused by my stepfather, and he got me pregnant when I was 12,” 22-year-old Hadley Duvall says in a new campaign ad released by Vice President Kamala Harris Thursday.
“When I was 5, I began getting sexually abused by my stepfather, and he got me pregnant when I was 12,” Hadley Duvall says in a new campaign ad released by Vice President Kamala Harris Thursday. Duvall, a rape survivor turned reproductive rights advocate, has been featured in several high-profile campaign ads and spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. She has recounted the harrowing pattern of abuse that resulted in her pregnancy as a child in Kentucky, and the options she had about what to do with that pregnancy. Today, a 12-year-old rape victim in Kentucky would have no in-state options to consider. Kentucky is one of 13 states with near total abortion bans — on paper, all bans include exceptions to save the life of the mother. It is also one of 10 states with abortion bans or early-term restrictions highlighted by a KFF analysis that do not make exceptions for cases of sexual assault. Duvall also featured in a campaign ad for Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who says his state’s abortion law gives rapists more rights than their victims. A series of legal challenges to abortion bans has led to shifting policies in the years since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.

The Justice Department’s leadership asked career prosecutors in Florida Tuesday to volunteer over the “next several days” to help to redact the Epstein files, in the latest internal Trump administrationpush toward releasing the hundreds of thousands of photos, internal memos and other evidence around the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The US State Department on Tuesday imposed visa sanctions on a former top European Union official and employees of organizations that combat disinformation for alleged censorship – sharply ratcheting up the Trump administration’s fight against European regulations that have impacted digital platforms, far-right politicians and Trump allies, including Elon Musk.











