Joe Biden may have repeated the story of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who was raped and denied an abortion, but that doesn’t make it true. In fact, the story was suspicious and uncorroborated to start with; now it’s falling apart. The Ohio attorney general says Ohio law does not prevent such an abortion and that there’s “not a whisper” of an investigation related to this crime. “This young girl, if she exists and if this horrible thing actually happened to her,” he said, “she did not have to leave Ohio” to receive an abortion. Yet Fox News says a girl did cross state lines for an abortion, and that the doctor at the center of this story faces a privacy law violation filed by her employer.

Update: Authorities have arrested an illegal alien in connection with the rape of a 10-year-old Ohio girl.

In any case, Peter Heck says there should be a reckoning.

The timing was as suspicious as the story was gut-wrenching, and my state’s newspaper-of-record, the Indianapolis Star, had it first. Just days after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v Jackson remanded the issue of abortion back to state legislatures by properly recognizing that the U.S. Constitution has no, nor did it ever have any, presupposed “right to abortion” hidden inside its “penumbras,” a 10-year-old Ohio girl allegedly fell victim to the Court’s coldness.

The girl, according to reports, had been sexually abused and raped, resulting in a statistically miraculous emergency pregnancy. Since her tiny frame and undeveloped organs would not be capable of surviving a 9-month gestation and delivery, an abortion was deemed necessary to save her life.

But, it was reported, Ohio’s anti-abortion “trigger law” that went into effect immediately following the reversal of Roe did not allow this little girl to access a “life-saving” abortion — although there is legitimate dispute about the accuracy of such an interpretation of Ohio’s law (which does seem as though it would allow for such). Nevertheless, the harrowing tale concludes with the girl able to find “treatment” in the neighboring state of Indiana.

The Star reported it. Other pro-abortion media promoted it. The President of the United States repeated it. And then, that was it.

Despite some half-hearted efforts to determine the veracity of the tale, ultimately the Leftmedia decided it was too good to check. That wasn’t the case for everyone, of course, and as Heck notes, “PJ Media’s Megan Fox did a remarkable job compiling it all.” Heck adds:

Being from Indiana myself, I am quite familiar with the abortionist and activist who is held out as the lone source for this story — Caitlan Bernard. She has quite a record of extremism in my state and beyond. Given her track record of advocacy over honesty, the skepticism many are now expressing is sadly appropriate. What’s more, I used to write for the Indianapolis Star and experienced firsthand the progressive editorial influence of parent-corporation Gannett in determining what they cover and how they cover it.

He was unable to get a response from the paper, which isn’t surprising. But he concludes:

If it does turn out they did concoct this story, the lying abortionist should be censured, the paper shamed, and the pro-abortion movement’s already-dismal credibility should suffer another critical blow.

But suppose there is tragic merit to the story, and consequently this innocent 10-year-old girl is being used as a mere weapon in a larger war by forces who care little to nothing about her actual well-being. For all the talk about the need for “reproductive justice,” this girl deserves criminal justice, and reporters, newspapers, and activists alike should be unwilling to rest until she gets it.

Play your abortion games later. For now, if one really exists, make the rapist known, make his crimes infamous, and let the public mete out swift, harsh, and appropriate justice. The fact that no one seems interested in doing so speaks to either their own confidence the story is a fable, or their own galling disinterest in justice. Neither is acceptable.

Read the whole thing here.