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.
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