An Indianapolis abortionist who is accused of exploiting a 10-year-old rape victim to promote her pro-abortion agenda is scheduled to appear before the Indiana Medical Licensing Board later this month.
At the May 25 hearing, the board will consider if abortionist Caitlin Bernard should be disciplined after Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said she failed to immediately report the child rape case to authorities, the Indiana Capital Chronicle reports.
Rokita said authorities potentially may have been able to protect the little girl from further abuse if Bernard had followed the law.
“After the child left [Bernard’s] care … she returned to Ohio and upon information and belief, resided in the same home as her alleged rapist,” Rokita wrote in the complaint.
Bernard’s attorneys insist she is innocent. They said Bernard’s comments to the press about the 10-year-old did not violate HIPAA patient privacy law. They also asserted that she did notify authorities about the child abuse, following the policies of IU Health, her employer.
Ahead of the disciplinary hearing, the medical board granted several requests from both parties, including one from the attorney general asking that Bernard, an OB-GYN, answer follow-up questions in a deposition. Her attorneys had objected to the request, claiming the deposition would be an “undue burden,” according to the report.
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The medical board also approved a request from Bernard’s attorneys that the documents and written answers she provides be kept confidential, the report continues.
Attorney General Rokita also asked for the hearing to be delayed until August, but the board rejected the request.
The case began last fall when Rokita filed a complaint against Bernard, accusing her of violating patient privacy laws and failing to properly report child abuse to authorities in the case of the 10-year-old rape victim for whom she had performed an abortion.
Rokita said Bernard “failed to uphold legal and Hippocratic responsibilities” by “exploiting a 10-year-old little girl’s traumatic medical story to the press for her own interests,” the Indiana Capitol Chronicle reported at the time.
He said Bernard knew about the abuse by June 27, if not earlier, but did not report anything to authorities until July 2. As a result of her failure, he said it appears the girl went back home to her alleged rapist, a man who later was arrested.
Earlier in the summer, Bernard attracted national news attention when she told The Indianapolis Star about performing an abortion on the 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and the Ohio heartbeat law went into effect.
Later, the attorney general accused her of violating patient privacy by speaking about the child abuse victim to the press.
Here’s more from the Indianapolis Star:
“The doctor and her attorneys initiated this media frenzy from the beginning, and it continues to draw attention to this innocent little girl who is trying to cope with a horrific trauma,” Rokita said in a prepared statement last [month]. The administrative complaint against Bernard states that two weeks after the IndyStar story was published, a reporter showed up to the 10-year-old girl’s house in Ohio with video cameras.
Bernard contends that she did not mention her young patient’s name to the news media and the abuse already had been reported to Ohio authorities.
But Rokita said she still had a duty to report the abuse immediately, and simply concealing the girl’s name was not enough to protect her privacy.
“Bernard violated the law, her patient’s trust and the standards for the medical profession when she disclosed her patient’s abuse, medical issues and medical treatment to a reporter at an abortion rights rally to further her political agenda,” Rokita said, previously.
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 properly 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 that were not reported to the Indiana Department of Child Services 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.
