Family of 13-Year-Old Mississippi Mother Is Moving to Be Further From Her Rapist
The teen, referred to as Ashley (a pseudonym), became pregnant from the rape and was unable to get an abortion due to the state’s sweeping ban.
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On Monday, Time published a damning report about a 13-year-old Black girl in Mississippi who gave birth this month after being raped in 2022 and denied abortion care due to Mississippi’s ban. Time’s Charlotte Alter shared a gutting update on Wednesday: The young girl (referred to as Ashley, a pseudonym), who’s about start 7th grade, and her family are planning to move in order “to relocate away from the rapist and closer to family so that Ashley can get a fresh start.” This comes after, per Alter’s reporting, police failed to take any action against Ashley’s rapist.
Ashley’s family filed a police report in the spring shortly after learning at the emergency room that her recent sickness was due to pregnancy and that Ashley had been impregnated by rape. The family provided the name of a possible suspect, but the local police department took no action and only collected a DNA sample from Ashley’s newborn after Alter inquired multiple times about whether they were doing anything. The local police chief shrugged off the delayed action when pressed about it: “It’s a pretty high priority, as a juvenile,” he told Time, but “sometimes they slip a little bit because we’ve got a lot going on, but then they come back to it.”