Rape myths, take 1,089,398,123,302

International Planned Parenthood had this article about an 11-year old Romanian girl who is flying to Britain to get an abortion after being raped by her uncle. Romania has a 14-week abortion cap and this girl didn't know she was pregnant (or was too afraid to say anything considering she'd been threatened) until she had passed the time limit. The interesting point to me was the comment that one of the Romanian officials made about her case:

"The fact that the pregnancy stemmed from rape was not taken into account by the panel, for two reasons," explained Vica Todosiciuc, head of the Cuza Voda maternity section in the northeastern city of Iasi.

"One, because rape has not been proven. And two, because the penal code does not allow for any exceptions," he said.

I think it's important to note that, even though the Romanian courts were not going to make any exceptions, the head of the Cuza Voda maternity section still felt the need to perpetuate rape myths as a reason to limit abortion access.