By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — After Ohio’s “heartbeat” bill was signed into law in April, some news outlets carried stories that it would forbid abortions for pregnant rape victims.
For instance, The Hill.com headlined on May 14, “Pregnant 11-year-old rape victim in Ohio would be unable to receive abortion under new law.”
The New York Daily News on May 14 quoted Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a pro-life Republican, as saying at the signing ceremony: “The essential function of the government is to protect the most vulnerable among us, those who don’t have a voice. Government’s role should be to protect life from the beginning to the end.”
Pushing pro-abortionists’ emphasis, the Daily News’ headline was, “Ohio ‘heartbeat’ abortion law would force females like an 11-year-old rape victim to carry and deliver attacker’s baby.”
As it turned out, in a separate case an 11-year-old girl in Phoenix was impregnated by an illegal alien reportedly from Guatemala, but her mother said she’d support the preteen’s pregnancy and wouldn’t push abortion as the solution.
On May 25 Phoenix-based KSAZ-TV, Channel 10, posted a video of the girl’s mother, identified only as “Maura,” standing in a doorway and speaking to the television reporter in Spanish.
Maura said, “She’s going to have the baby — the baby doesn’t have (a) fault in this. There’s life there — no abortion. She will continue the pregnancy.”
She said in the video that she’d tried to keep the 20-year-old man away from her daughter and reported him three times. “I tried to avoid this from happening, but the detectives said that because she was consensual, they couldn’t do anything and unfortunately this happened and is when they arrested him.”
The 11-year-old reportedly was infatuated with the adult man, but KSAZ pointed out that under Arizona law, a person under 18 years of age isn’t old enough to give legal consent.
The man, identified as Carlos Jacinto Cobo-Perez, reportedly asked to be deported after he was arrested.
KSAZ reported, “Cobo-Perez is on an immigration hold, while the mother of the 11-year-old says she wants him to pay for what he’s done and then he can be deported.”
Phoenix-based KNXV-TV, Channel 15, reported on May 23: “Her family now plans on moving forward and supporting their daughter in her pregnancy.” The station quoted the girl’s mother saying, “This isn’t the baby’s fault; I’m not going to ruin her life and tell her to abort it.”
If the man’s request to be deported from the U.S. now were granted, KNXV quoted the mother, “he’ll be able to come back pretty easily.”
The TV station said the man was being held on $150,000 cash bond for sexual conduct with a minor.
Citing the woman’s statement that she had reported the Guatemalan’s unwelcome pursuit of the girl three times, KNXV said, “The 11-year-old girl’s family says not only are they upset with Cobo-Perez but more so with Phoenix police, who they say could have prevented this by arresting Cobo-Perez months before she got pregnant.”
Another Phoenix TV outlet said the victim’s stepfather said the accused rapist “kept insisting. She’s an 11-year-old girl. He’s 20. Almost 21. But he said he already knew what he wanted. He got in her head, and she fell for it easily.”
While these television stations were candid about the alleged rapist’s illegal presence in the U.S., some news reports avoided raising that topic. The conservative Seeing Red AZ blog noted this reluctance on May 26, citing the state’s largest daily, The Arizona Republic.
John Jakubczyk, a Phoenix attorney and a former president of Arizona Right to Life, told The Wanderer on May 28: “I’m pleased that the mother is standing with her daughter and choosing life for her grandchild. I am concerned that apparently the police were aware of what was going on and they failed to act appropriately.”
Phoenix police’s alleged inappropriate response was being reviewed. When The Wanderer asked the Phoenix Police Department on May 25 about contacting someone in the girl’s family, police spokesman Sgt. Vince Lewis replied, “We do not connect victims with media, and there is an internal investigation connected to this case which bars us from any comment.”
The Daily Caller conservative site (dailycaller.com) reported on May 25 that once the Guatemalan’s immigration status came to light, ICE acted, saying in a statement:
“On May 18, 2019, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement . . . lodged an immigration detainer with the Maricopa County Jail on Carlos Jacinto Cobo-Perez, 20, an illegal alien from Guatemala, following his criminal arrest for two felony counts of sexual conduct with a minor and one felony count of aggravated assault.”
Northern California conservative commentator Barbara Simpson told The Wanderer on May 27: “The stunning controversy about a family which does not want their 11-year-old daughter to have an abortion misses the point. The focus should be on the creep who stalked and enticed the child for months and then, after impregnating her, brags about it.
“In fact, the outrage should be levied against the Phoenix Police Department, which knew what this man was doing to this child — remember, 11 years old! — and only warned the guy to leave her alone. He didn’t,” Simpson said.
“The girl’s parents knew what was going on and the mother says she called authorities at least three times, but they did nothing. They knew who the creep was (is), where he was, and what he was doing, but no one was able or willing to stop him,” she said.
“Now that it’s public, pressure is being put on the parents to have the child undergo an abortion. All the usual arguments are being leveled at the parents, who are saying ‘no.’ They say it’s a baby and they don’t want to burden their little daughter with ultimately having to face the fact that an abortion would have killed her child,” Simpson said.
Noting that the suspect also is an illegal alien, Simpson said, “One might ask why the police department seems to have missed these details. As far as I’m concerned, the creep is lucky that the girl’s father didn’t take things into his own hands. . . .
“I’ll bet if he had, the police would have been right there to arrest him,” she said.
Truly Compassionate Support
With abortion for rape pregnancies being cited as a necessity by the predictable pro-abortion media outlets, some other sites have called attention to efforts by adults who had been conceived as rape babies saying that the infants shouldn’t be punished because of the crime by their fathers.
For instance, under the headline “Here’s what adults conceived in rape have to say about abortion,” The Stream Christian site (stream.org) on May 27 noted an article at The Daily Caller telling about some of them.
It said that Rebecca Kiessling is “a woman conceived through a brutal sexual attack on her mother, (who) claims that lawmakers should punish rapists and not babies. Kiessling is the founder and president of ‘Save the 1,’ an organization dedicated to educate the public on saving the one percent of aborted babies conceived through rape.”
That organization’s site (www.savethe1.com) says in part at the “About” tab:
“First, if you are struggling with becoming 100 percent pro-life, struggling to reject the exceptions, please realize that these are real lives you may be discounting. Truly compassionate support aids and protects the mother on her journey of healing while at the same time protecting the other life present, the baby’s life.
“Second, please visit our website, SaveThe1.com, our Save The 1 Facebook page, and the website of our founder and president, RebeccaKiessling.com, to learn more about us and read many other stories,” it says.
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