Indiana hospital investigation clears doctor who performed abortion on 10-year-old Ohio rape victim

Conservatives have attempted to cast doubt on 10-year-old’s story

An Indiana doctor didn’t break privacy laws by describing on the record how a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio had to cross state lines to get an abortion, according to an investigation.

Dr Caitlin Bernard became the centre of a political-media firestorm this month, after The Indianapolis Star reported she helped treat a rape victim who travelled from Ohio to Indiapolis for treatment because of her home state’s newly implemented, highly restrictive abortion laws after the end of Roe v Wade.

Republican politicians and media figures have attacked the doctor and questioned her credibility.

On Friday, the Indiana University Health system said its investigation concluded Dr Bernard’s handling of the case didn’t break any privacy laws.

“As part of IU Health’s commitment ot patient privacy and compliance with privacy laws, IU Health routinely initiaties reviews, including the matters in the news concerning Dr Caitlin Bernard,” it wrote in a statement, adding. “IU Health’s investigation found Dr Bernard in compliance with privacy laws.”

That hasn’t stopped many on the right from going after Ms Bernard and even the 10-year-old victim of sexual violence at the heart of the case.

Earlier this week, Indiana’s attorney general Todd Rokita promised to investigate the Indianapolis OB-GYN.

“We’re gathering the evidence as we speak, and we’re going to fight this to the end, including looking at her licensure if she failed to report. And in Indiana it’s a crime … to intentionally not report,” he told Fox News host Jesse Watters on Wednesday. “This is a child, and there’s a strong public interest in understanding if someone under the age of 16 or under the age of 18, or really any woman, is having abortion in our state.”

(Dr Bernard did in fact report the abortion, the Star reported.)

Fox News hosts have been blasting the Indiana doctor, with Mr Watters calling the story a “hoax” and “politically timed disinformation”, and Tucker Carlson declaring the circumstances of the case were “not true”.

Ohio’s GOP attorney general Dave Yost, meanwhile, told media outlets the case was “more likely” a “fabrication”, and claimed there was not “the slightest hint that this occured there”.

Dr Caitlin Bernard addresses anti-abortion legislation during an Indiana General Assembly committee hearing on 15 February. (Indiana General Assembly)

These claims were echoed by the Wall Street Journal editorial board on 12 July, which suggested the case was an “unlikely story from a biased source that neatly fits the progressive narrative but can’t be confirmed,” even though DrBernard had performed the abortion herself and spoken on the record about it.

A GOP-called witness at a congressional abortion hearing, meanwhile, even made the bizarre claim that because the 10-year-old was raped, the procedure technically wasn’t an abortion, and that even if it was one, it would be covered under exceptions to Ohio state law. That’s false: the Ohio abortion law, which bans abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, has no exception for rape or incest.

The circumstances of the case are well-documented and very clearly real.

On 12 July, Gerson Fuentes, 27, from Columbus, Ohio, was arrested and charged with raping the young girl, after the girl’s mother alerted Franklin County Children Services last month.

“This is, unfortunately, the real-life consequences of the abortion ban,” Dr Bernard told The Independent. “All states have people who are pregnant who need abortion care, in the most extreme circumstances and in the most common circumstances, and everyone deserves to have access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare in a state in which they live.”