Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, pictured right here in 2016, is going through a lawsuit from Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an abortion supplier in search of to cease him from issuing subpoenas for her sufferers’ information.
Darron Cummings/AP
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Darron Cummings/AP
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, pictured right here in 2016, is going through a lawsuit from Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an abortion supplier in search of to cease him from issuing subpoenas for her sufferers’ information.
Darron Cummings/AP
An Indiana abortion supplier who got here underneath assault by the state lawyer normal has filed a lawsuit to dam him from subpoenaing her sufferers’ medical information – together with these of a 10-year-old rape sufferer she handled.
In the lawsuit, Dr. Caitlin Bernard and her medical accomplice declare that state Attorney General Todd Rokita has been issuing subpoenas to healthcare services for a few of their sufferers’ information, based mostly on complaints from people who find themselves not their sufferers and will stay out of state. Rokita “took the extra step of issuing sweepingly broad doc subpoenas to a hospital system … for ‘all the medical file’ of the affected person mentioned within the information tales,” in response to the go well with filed Thursday in Marion County, Ind.
After Bernard spoke out publicly in July about offering an abortion to a younger rape sufferer who was denied the process due to an abortion ban in her dwelling state of Ohio, Rokita instructed on Fox News, with out offering proof, that Bernard had did not comply with state reporting legal guidelines.
Indiana well being officers later launched paperwork confirming Bernard had submitted the right paperwork. Rokita nonetheless promised to launch an investigation.
Bernard’s lawyer, Kathleen Delaney, mentioned in an interview with NPR on Wednesday that she’s involved in regards to the affect of Rokita’s actions on docs and their sufferers.
“I’m involved that the true function behind these actions would possibly very effectively be, for my part, an effort to intimidate physicians who present abortion care and sufferers who search that care,” she mentioned.
After Rokita’s public statements about her, Bernard mentioned she confronted harassment and threats. Her lawyer despatched a cease-and-desist letter to Rokita in July, warning that he may face a defamation go well with if he continued to publicly query her skilled habits with out proof.
BREAKING: An lawyer for Indiana Dr. Caitlin Bernard has despatched a stop and desist letter to Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, after he instructed with out proof that she’d did not report an abortion supplied to a 10yo rape sufferer. Documents affirm she did report it.
— Sarah McCammon📻 (@sarahmccammon) July 15, 2022
Delaney mentioned Bernard has not dominated out submitting a defamation go well with, however that she believes the scenario involving affected person information requires “pressing” consideration as a result of it’s placing sufferers’ personal well being data in danger.
“It’s stunning to me that the lawyer normal is in search of entry to probably the most private and personal healthcare information possible,” Delaney mentioned. “And it is arduous for me to grasp any reliable function behind such a request when there’s been completely no allegation that the care that was supplied by my shoppers was in any means substandard.”
Rokita spokeswoman Kelly Stevenson issued a press release Thursday afternoon saying the Attorney General’s Office adopted process.
“By statutory obligation, we examine 1000’s of potential licensing, privateness, and different violations a 12 months,” the assertion mentioned. “A majority of the complaints we obtain are, in truth, from nonpatients. Any investigations that come up because of potential violations are dealt with in a uniform method and narrowly targeted.
“We will focus on this explicit matter additional by the judicial filings we make.”
Bernard’s go well with suggests Rokita is utilizing the state’s client criticism course of as a pretext to research Bernard and her colleague. According to the submitting, Rokita’s subpoenas have been issued in response to complaints largely from individuals who reside out of state and have by no means been her sufferers, and who complained after seeing information reviews about Bernard.
The go well with asks the courtroom to subject an injunction in opposition to Rokita, arguing that in any other case, “Defendants will proceed to unlawfully harass physicians and sufferers who’re engaged in utterly authorized conduct and although neither the physicians nor sufferers have any complaints about their relationship.”