Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita accused an Indianapolis abortionist Tuesday of using the tragic case of a 10-year-old rape victim to promote her pro-abortion political agenda while potentially breaking child abuse reporting and patient privacy laws.
On Monday, a lawyer from Rokita’s office and abortionist Caitlin Bernard appeared in court to determine if Bernard must provide the patient’s medical records to the attorney general’s office for its investigation, the AP reports. Bernard aborted the girl’s unborn baby June 30 after the girl was taken from Ohio to Indiana for an abortion.
“If the doctor did not choose to use her patient, a 10-year-old rape victim, to further her own political agenda, we would not be here today,” Rokita said in a statement Tuesday.
Rokita said the evidence suggests Bernard may have violated patient privacy laws when she told The Indianapolis Star about the girl after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and the Ohio heartbeat law went into effect.
He said she also may have violated the state mandatory reporting law, which requires her to immediately report child abuse to authorities.
“Only by reporting to Indiana authorities immediately, as called for by statute, might the little girl have been spared from potentially being sent back to her perpetrator,” Rokita said. “There is no defensible reason for this doctor to shatter her 10-year-old patient’s trust by divulging her abortion procedure to a reporter so her traumatizing experience could be used in the polarizing abortion debate on the heels of Dobbs.”
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In court Monday, Bernard and her lawyers defended her actions, saying the attorney general’s investigation is not necessary because “there is no evidence of any crime being committed,” according to the AP.
Bernard said the abuse already had been reported to Ohio authorities, but Deputy Attorney General Caryn Nieman-Szyper responded that Indiana law still requires that Bernard immediately report the abuse, too, the report continues.
Here’s more from the report:
Nieman-Szyper said Bernard wouldn’t be under investigation if she had not disclosed the girl’s rape to a reporter to advance her own advocacy of abortion rights. Nieman-Szyper said Bernard had not shown she had permission from the girl’s family to discuss her care in public, exposing the child to national attention.
Bernard said she had not yet seen the girl when she told the reporter about her as an example of the impact of tighter abortion laws going into effect across the country, but did not reveal identifying information about her.
After the hearing, Rokita said the abortionist just does not want to be investigated.
“This doctor demands immunity from all scrutiny, but her remedy is before the Medical Licensing Board, not an injunction from this court,” he said. “We believe she has failed to carry her burden of proof and that the Office of the Attorney General should be free to continue its statutory duty to hold physicians and other practitioners to the standards of the law.”
In July, authorities arrested a 27-year-old Columbus, Ohio man and charged him with raping the girl.
One concern is that Bernard listed the rapist’s age as 17, according to The Epoch Times. Another is that, although she did report the abuse to state health authorities within three days, Rokita’s office is investigating if she failed to notify the Indiana Department of Child Services, which also is required.
This is not the first time Bernard has been accused of failing to properly report a potential rape case involving a minor girl. As LifeNews reported in 2018, she and eight other abortion practitioners allegedly failed to file abuse reports in 48 cases involving girls as young as 12 years old.
According to information Indiana Right to Life provided LifeNews, some of the girls who had abortions were as young as 12 and 13. The alleged 48 instances occurred since July 1, 2017. Complaints were filed with former Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill and the Indiana State Department of Health. The Marion, Lake, Tippecanoe and Monroe county prosecutors also were notified.
Two members of Congress, including Rokita who was in the U.S. House at the time, called for investigations. However, after the accusations were made, nothing ever came of them.
Indiana law requires mandatory reporting of abortions on girls under 16 to the Indiana State Department of Health and the Indiana Department of Child Services within three days of the abortion so that authorities can investigate potential child sex abuse.
