Indiana’s Republican Attorney General can continue investigating an Indianapolis doctor who spoke publicly about the abortion of a 10-year-old rape victim from neighboring Ohio, a judge has ruled.
An attempt to block an investigation into Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office was dismissed by Marion County Judge Heather Welch. She ruled Friday in a separate lawsuit that Indiana’s abortion ban, enacted in August, violates the state’s religious freedom law, signed into law by then-Governor Mike Pence in 2015.
However, Indiana’s abortion ban has been suspended since mid-September as courts consider a challenge by abortion clinic operators who argue the ban violates the state constitution.
The judge’s decision on the investigation against Dr. Caitlin Bernard arrived two days after the attorney general’s office asked the state licensing board to discipline Bernard for allegations that she violated state law by failing to report the girl’s child molestation to Indiana authorities and violated the privacy laws of patient had told a newspaper reporter about the girl’s treatment.
That report triggered in the weeks after the US Supreme Court Roe v. Wade in June sparked a national political uproar, with some news outlets and Republican politicians suggesting Bernard made up the story.
Indiana GOP Attorney General Todd Rokita asked the state medical board last week to let Dr. Caitlin Bernard (pictured), an Indianapolis doctor who has spoken publicly about having the abortion of a 10-year-old rape victim who traveled from Ohio to discipline his more restrictive abortion law went into effect
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (pictured) accuses Dr. Bernard alleges violating state law by failing to report the unidentified girl’s child molestation to Indiana authorities and violating patient privacy laws by telling a newspaper reporter about the girl’s treatment
The girl hadn’t been able to get an abortion in Ohio after a more restrictive abortion law went into effect there.
Bernard filed a lawsuit against the attorney general last month, arguing Rokita’s office was falsely justifying the investigation with “frivolous” consumer complaints filed by people who had no personal knowledge of the girl’s treatment.
Bernard and her attorneys claim the girl’s abuse was reported to the Ohio police before the doctor ever saw the child.
An attempt to block an investigation into Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office was dismissed by Marion County Judge Heather Welch. The judge also ruled in a separate lawsuit that Indiana’s abortion ban, enacted in August, violates the state’s Religious Freedom Act, which then-Governor Mike Pence signed into law in 2015
However, the judge denied Bernard’s request for a restraining order to stall the investigation. Welch ruled that the medical licensing board now had jurisdiction over the matter since the attorney general filed the complaint on Wednesday. That complaint asked the state board of licensure to impose “reasonable disciplinary action” without specifying a proposed penalty.
The board, which has the power to suspend, revoke or place a doctor’s license on probation, said Friday it had received the complaint but had not set a hearing date.
However, Welch found that Rokita had erroneously made public comments about the investigation into Bernard before the complaint was filed. Welch wrote that Rokita’s comments constitute “clear unlawful violations of the requirement under the Licensing Investigations Act that employees of the Attorney General’s Office maintain confidentiality about pending investigations until referred to the DA’s office.”
Bernard’s attorney, Kathleen DeLaney, slammed Rokita for breaching his “duty of confidentiality” and preemptively escalating the case to the medical board, “taking it out of Judge Welch’s hands.”
“We are confident in the records and testimonies we have already developed and look forward to sharing the evidence from Dr. Bernard to the Medical Licensing Board,” DeLaney said.
dr Caitlin Bernard (pictured) and her defense claim the girl’s abuse was reported to Ohio police before she first met the child
The attorney general’s office said the ruling supports the protection of patients’ privacy.
“The doctor and her attorneys created this media frenzy from the start, and it continues to draw attention to this innocent little girl trying to cope with terrible trauma,” the office said in a statement, criticizing the Richters unaddressed was Rokita’s public comments on the case.
Bernard was providing the girl with abortion drugs in Indianapolis in late June when she said doctors had determined the girl in neighboring Ohio could not have an abortion.
That’s because Ohio’s Fetal Heartbeat Act went into effect with the US Supreme Court’s decision to end women’s constitutional protections from abortion. Such laws prohibit abortions from the point at which cardiac activity can be detected in an embryo, which is typically around the sixth week of pregnancy.
Despite the ongoing investigation, Todd Rokita has accused a 27-year-old man of raping the young girl
Rokita has continued the investigation even after a 27-year-old man in Columbus, Ohio, was charged with raping the girl, and public records show that Bernard complied with Indiana’s mandatory three-day reporting deadline for having an abortion on a girl under 16.
In Welch’s ruling on the state’s ban on abortion, the judge sided with five residents – who are Jewish, Muslim and spiritual – who argued that the ban would violate their religious rights if they believe abortion is acceptable.
“The unchallenged evidence is that plaintiffs do not share the state’s belief that life begins at fertilization or that abortion constitutes the deliberate killing of a human being,” Welch wrote. “On the contrary, they have different religious beliefs about when life begins. … Under the law, the court finds that these are sincere religious beliefs.’
Rokita’s office, which defends the abortion ban in court, did not immediately comment on the ruling in the religious freedom lawsuit.