On Thursday, the Indianas Medical Licensing Board voted to reprimand and fine obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Caitlin Bernard $3,000 on trumped-up charges that she violated the privacy of a 10-year-old Ohio rape victim last year by speaking publicly of the implication of the rollover Roe versus Wade after providing the girl with a medical abortion.
The title story began on June 22, 2022, when Columbus, Ohio police were notified of the rape of the young girls through Franklin County Children’s Services. Two days later the US Supreme Court reversed Roe versus Wade, triggering the enactment of an Ohio law limiting abortions after fetal heart activity is detected, which is approximately six weeks into the pregnancy.
On June 27, Dr. Bernard received a call from a child abuse physician in Ohio explaining that his patient was over the legal pregnancy threshold of six weeks and three days for the state to permit her to obtain. a legal and safe abortion. Dr. Bernard accepted her referral and the girl traveled with her mother to Indiana. On June 30, the medical abortion was completed.
Although the Supreme Court’s ruling had not yet affected Indiana’s abortion laws, the Indiana General Assembly was planning to call a special session on July 25 to specifically discuss restrictions on their abortion policy. But because the procedure was still legal, the girl, like many others, was on her way to a neighboring state where this treatment was being provided.
Dr. Bernard, speaking with the Indianapolis star, he said at the time, it’s hard to imagine that in a few weeks we won’t be able to provide such assistance. Basically, she was talking not only about her own practice, but the impact on the reproductive health of women in her state and everywhere else in the country that was affected by the Supreme Court’s reactionary decision.
Defending his actions, he recently explained to PBS News Hour because he spoke to the press about the details of the case at hand. I think it’s incredibly important for people to understand the real-world impacts of this country’s abortion laws, Dr. Bernard said. I think it’s important that people know what patients are going to face as a result of the legislation that has been passed, and a hypothetical has no such impact. Additionally, he explained that he has ethical obligations as a physician to educate the public about issues that have had a significant negative impact on their health.
In the week following the Supreme Court ruling, Womens Med, a medical center offering abortions in Indianapolis that is affiliated with a similar center in Dayton, Ohio, told the paper it had accepted more than 100 Dayton patients at their facility. In an email, Womens Med wrote to Indianapolis star that pregnant women and patients who came to their clinic cried, distraught, desperate, grateful and grateful for the chance to receive treatment.
As the paper noted at the time, the two centers are working together to refer patients to Indianapolis for a termination after a preoperative appointment in Dayton. In recent months, they’ve also had people from southern states, like Texas, come up north for a procedure. They added, “Many patients, especially from Ohio and Kentucky, are seeking help through Womens Med while also making multiple appointments in other states, so if one state closes, they’ll still have some [other] options.
The story in Indianapolis star he quickly became a lightning rod for far-right reaction. In addition to openly threatening Dr. Bernard, many in the Republican Party said the incident never happened despite attracting national attention when a 27-year-old man who confessed to the crime was arrested. He is expected to face trial this summer.
Dr. Bernard’s reputation has been vilified and vilified in the national and conservative press. THE Wall Street Journals andThe board wrote that the issue was fabricated to make abortion a voting issue, then attacked it openly: You may not be surprised to learn that Dr. Bernard has a long history of abortion activism in the average.
Indiana State Attorney General Todd Rokita, a reactionary Trump supporter and staunchly against abortion, quickly went on the offensive by employing intimidation and bullying tactics by promising that he would prosecute Dr. Bernard to the fullest extent of the law, claiming the doctor who vilified how this abortion activist by acting as a doctor had violated privacy laws and failed to report the case to authorities over suspected child abuse. Clearly, his office and the powers he held sought to make an example of Dr. Bernard and other abortion providers.
Dr. Bernard has never disclosed the girl’s name, the Ohio city or county where her patient resides, or provided the media with information about the girl’s personal health that could expose the rape victim.
The Board’s six doctors and an attorney hand-picked by the state’s Republican governor, Eric Holcomb, have had ample leeway in interpreting these allegations of invasion of patient privacy. But they had to dismiss allegations by reactionary and staunchly anti-abortion Rokita that Dr. Bernard failed to report the crime to Indiana authorities. It was well documented that Dr. Bernard, after performing the abortion on June 30, filed the appropriate abortion form with the Indiana Department of Health and Department of Children’s Services on July 2, 2022 .
In a November 2022 hearing to counter charges brought by the attorney general, Dr. Bernard testified that she told an Indiana University health care social worker that the girl would be treated and that administration personnel hospital would inform the competent authorities. Mario County Deputy Attorney Katharine Melnick confirmed that hospital social workers and not physicians report and refer such cases to law enforcement. Her employer, Indiana Health System, also acknowledged that Dr. Bernard followed state and hospital reporting procedures.
From the beginning it was clear that Dr. Bernard had done nothing wrong. A simple inquiry and request for records and documents would have assured the state authorities that everything was indeed in order.
The allegations made by Rokita that Dr. Bernard had failed to report suspected child abuse, a violation of state law, were intended to give the Indiana Medical Board ammunition to suspend or revoke doctors’ medical licenses. While the Board has placed no restrictions on her ability to practice medicine, his name will be entered into a national database as a censor in her record that will follow her for the remainder of her career.
The entire proceeding and the sentences were politically motivated to threaten doctors and health care networks that offer reproductive care including safe and legal abortions to their patients. Dr. Bernard’s case was used by the right-wing coalition that uprooted the half-century-old law that granted women the right to privacy that includes the choice to seek and have an abortion in an effort to block moves to override state laws that prohibit abortions. or place strict limits on them, even traveling to other states that allow abortions.
Anticipating the social and political forces that intersected on June 24, 2022, Supreme Court revocation, the World Socialist website issued a statement from the Socialist Equality Party (US) on May 3, 2022, explaining: Without legal access to abortion, working-class women, without the resources or ability to take off work to travel across state lines , will be forced to resort to the dangerous and potentially deadly methods of the past. In this regard, the attack on the health workers who provide such services was to take out an insurance policy on their fascist imperatives.
As the statement concludes, Beyond Abortion Rights, a Supreme Court decision that overturns Roe will open the door for a frontal assault on a whole host of established Democratic rights known as unenumerated rights.
The working class must demand the annulment of Dr. Bernard’s fine and removal of censure and demand an immediate investigation into the witch hunts by the Indiana Attorney General’s Office. Most importantly, the democratic right to abortion is intimately linked to the social rights of the working class to free and humane public health and healthcare. In this regard, the defense of Dr. Bernard as a doctor is also the defense of the inalienable social rights of the working class.
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