Abortionist Who Failed to Report Rape of 13-Year-Old Heads to Court Next Month

State   |   Dave Andrusko   |   Jul 18, 2014   |   6:41PM   |   South Bend, IN

Today’s hearing in St. Joseph County Traffic and Misdemeanor Court appears largely have been confined to establishing the next hearing date for abortionist Ulrich Klopfer who faces charges that he delayed reporting an abortion on a 13-year-old girl in South Bend, Indiana, in January 2013.

Indiana law requires reports on abortions provided to girls younger than 14 to be submitted within three days. Klopfer submitted the report six months after the abortion, according to state records.

Klopfer potentially faces a fine of $1,000 and 180 days in jail if convicted of the Class B misdemeanor. The date was set for August 1.

As NRL News Today reported last month, Klopfer is already scheduled to go to trial in Lake County, Indiana, for the same offense. But that trial won’t take place until Jan. 26, 2015.

klopfer7Jeanette Burdell, executive director of St. Joseph County Right to Life, told Amanda Gray of the South Bend Tribune, “I’m not sure what will happen at that hearing.” Burdell noted that Klopfer could have another continuance (as what took place in Lake County), “but at least it’s not six months out.”

Burdell also told Gray, “I hope the judge knows it’s something that needs to move forward,” a reference to the trial date set in Lake County.

Last November Klopfer told Gray and other reporters that he had made an “honest mistake” in reporting late two abortions–one in Gary and one in South Bend. But this morning he repeated again his assertion that state records showing that he took six months to report a February 7 abortion of a young teen in Fort Wayne are in error.

“We’re all human beings, we all make mistakes and we have to deal with the consequences, OK?,“ Klopfer told reporters, following this morning’s hearing. “Guys don’t get pregnant.”

In March prosecutor’s office spokeswoman Jessica McBrier confirmed to Gray that detectives took files and other paperwork from Klopfer’s office at the Women’s Pavilion abortion clinic. “McBrier said the search warrant was served as part of an ongoing investigation into Klopfer based on complaints and accompanying paperwork from St. Joseph County Right to Life Program Director Jeanette Burdell,” Gray reported.

Thanks to the result of the search warrant, Gray was able to publish the results of state inspections that had taken place at three abortion clinics in 2010 and 2012. The violations ran the gamut from “procedural infractions” to very serious infractions.

At today’s hearing, Burdell told Gray that “she and others in the Right to Life group have seen Klopfer ‘cleaning up his act’ at the clinic in recent weeks.”

“He’s taking a lot of stuff,” Burdell said. “We saw two Dumpster loads full in one week of stuff come out of that clinic. So he’s really cleaning up his act, and the state just goes ahead and renews the facility license because now it’s cleaned up.

“But what about all those years it wasn’t? That’s my question, and there were deficiencies right and left. And it’s a slap on the wrist and he continues to practice.”

LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared at National Right to Life News Today.