The Indiana doctor who provided an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio, who was unable to receive the procedure in her home state, is under investigation, her lawyer says.
Dr Caitlin Bernard received a notice from Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita on Tuesday alerting her that his office had opened an inquiry into her conduct, attorney Kathleen DeLaney told CNN.
“We are in the process of reviewing this information. It’s unclear to us what is the nature of the investigation and what authority he has to investigate Dr. Bernard,” Ms DeLaney said in a statement.
The notice arrives just a couple of weeks after the attorney general publicly promised to open an investigation into the Indianapolis OB-GYN.
While giving an interview on Fox News, Mr Rokita confirmed to his host Jesse Watters that his office was “gathering the evidence as we speak”, adding that he intended to “fight this to the end”.
“This is a child, and there’s a strong public interest in understanding if someone under the age of 16 or under the age of 18, or really any woman, is having abortion in our state,” the attorney general said.
One of the issues raised by Mr Rokita during his prime-time interview was his contention that Dr Bernard had failed to report the abortion procedure within three days of performing it to the appropriate agencies.
In Indiana, abortions are banned after 22 weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions for medical emergencies, but the state also requires that any procedure performed on a person who is under the age of 16 must be reported to the state’s Department of Health and the Department of Child Services -- all within three days of it occurring.
A public records request filed by the IndyStar found that Dr Bernard had in fact followed the law, as documents filed with each state agency showed that the Indiana physician had disclosed the procedure on 2 July, within two days of it happening.
Dr Bernard has brought her own tort claim notice against the attorney general and his office for public comments Mr Rokita made about her. In her claim, Dr Bernard says she’s seeking “damages for security costs, legal fees, reputational harm, and emotional distress,” according to a letter viewed by CNN.
For his part, the attorney general told The Independent in an emailed statement that Dr Bernard’s defamation claim is “baseless” and “other accusations are really just attempts to distract, intimidate and obstruct my office’s monumental progress to save lives”.
“She used a 10-year-old girl – a child rape victim’s personal trauma – to push her political ideology. She was aided and abetted by a fake news media who conveniently misquoted my words to try to give abortionists and their readership numbers an extra boost,” Mr Rokita said in an emailed statement from his office.
“My heart breaks for this little girl. As the Attorney General, I’m dutybound to investigate issues brought to my attention over which I have authority, especially when they involve children. And as I said originally, we will see this duty through to verify that all of the relevant reporting and privacy laws were followed by all relevant parties.”
The Indiana AG inquiry notice filed to Dr Bernard is the latest development in a story that has pushed the Indiana doctor into the centre of the abortion debate. Abortion has been at the forefront of the news in recent weeks after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on 24 June and ended the 50 years of abortions being a constitutionally protected procedure.
Just hours after the high court reversed the landmark ruling, Ohio, where the 10-year-old rape victim is from, enacted a “fetal heartbeat” law. Such a law effectively prohibits abortions for any person after six weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest.
Dr Bernard said she was tapped by an Ohio colleague to assist the girl, who found herself exactly six weeks and three days pregnant after the controversial Ohio law was passed.
On 30 June, Dr Bernard said that the 10-year-old travelled across state lines to receive the procedure and she promptly alerted the appropriate state agencies.
In an interview with The Indianapolis Star earlier this month, the Indiana doctor relayed her concerns that terrifying stories such as the 10-year-old girl she treated are not, and will not remain, anomalies in a post-Roe America.
“This is, unfortunately, the real-life consequences of the abortion ban,” she said. “All states have people who are pregnant who need abortion care, in the most extreme circumstances and in the most common circumstances, and everyone deserves to have access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare in a state in which they live.”
An earlier investigation carried out by Dr Bernard’s employer, Indiana Health University, where she practises and serves as an assistant professor, found that she didn’t break any privacy laws by describing on the record about the abortion she performed on the 10-year-old girl from Ohio.
“As part of IU Health’s commitment to patient privacy and compliance with privacy laws, IU Health routinely initiates reviews, including the matters in the news concerning Dr Caitlin Bernard,” it wrote in a statement, adding: “IU Health’s investigation found Dr Bernard in compliance with privacy laws.”
