Judge won’t block probe of doctor
INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana’s Republican attorney general can keep investigating an Indianapolis doctor who spoke publicly about providing an abortion to a 10-yearold rape victim from neighboring Ohio, a judge ruled Friday.
An attempt to block a probe by Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office was rejected by Marion County Judge Heather Welch. She also ruled Friday in a separate lawsuit that Indiana’s abortion ban adopted in August violates the state’s religious freedom law signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence in 2015.
The Indiana abortion ban, however, has been on hold since mid-September as courts consider a challenge from abortion clinic operators who argue the ban violates the state constitution.
The judge’s ruling on the investigation into Dr. Caitlin Bernard came two days after the attorney general’s office asked the state medical licensing board to discipline Bernard, alleging she violated state law by not reporting the girl’s child abuse to Indiana authorities and broke patient privacy laws by telling a newspaper reporter about the girl’s treatment.
That account sparked a national political uproar in the weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, with some news outlets and Republican politicians suggesting Bernard fabricated the story. The girl had been unable to get an abortion in Ohio after a more restrictive abortion law took effect there.
Bernard filed a lawsuit against the state attorney general last month, arguing Rokita’s office was wrongly justifying the investigation with “frivolous” consumer complaints submitted by people with no personal knowledge about the girl’s treatment.
But the judge turned down Bernard’s request for an injunction to block the investigation. Welch ruled the medical licensing board now had jurisdiction over the matter since the attorney general filed the complaint on Wednesday.
That complaint asked the state medical licensing board to impose “appropriate disciplinary action” without specifying a proposed penalty. The board, which has the authority to suspend, revoke or place on probation a doctor’s license, said Friday it had received the complaint but that no hearing date had been set.
Welch, however, found that Rokita wrongly made public comments about investigating Bernard before the complaint was filed. Bernard’s lawyer, Kathleen DeLaney, criticized Rokita for violating his “duty of confidentiality” and preemptively pushing the case to the medical board, thus “taking it out of the hands of Judge Welch.”