Dr. Caitlin Bernard, the obstetrician-gynecologist who offered a authorized abortion to a 10-year-old rape sufferer in Indiana final month, is getting ready to sue the state’s lawyer common for defamation.
Bernard’s attorneys filed a declare discover Tuesday, saying Legal professional Normal Todd Rokita owes her damages for safety prices, authorized charges, reputational hurt and emotional misery after saying final week he plans to research her actions and falsely suggesting she didn't report the abortion to state authorities.
“Mr. Rokita’s false and deceptive statements about alleged misconduct by Dr. Bernard in her occupation represent defamation per se. The statements have been and proceed to be printed by or on behalf of Mr. Rokita and the Workplace of the Legal professional Normal,” Bernard’s lawyer Kathleen DeLaney mentioned within the discover of declare.
The lawyer common’s workplace didn't instantly return a request for touch upon the upcoming authorized motion.
Rokita first commented publicly on Bernard final week when he appeared on Fox Information calling her an “abortion activist performing as a physician with a historical past of failing to report,” referencing an Indiana regulation that requires physicians to inform the state inside three days of performing an abortion on a affected person below 16.
“We’re gathering the proof as we converse, and we’re going to battle this to the tip, together with taking a look at her licensure,” Rokita mentioned.
These feedback got here round two weeks after the Indianapolis Star first reported on Bernard offering the abortion to the 10-year-old from Ohio, mentioning her expertise in a narrative about sufferers touring to Indiana for abortions from states that outlawed the process after the U.S. Supreme Court docket struck down Roe v. Wade final month.
Bernard took on the affected person after a baby abuse physician in Ohio, the place abortion had been banned, contacted her in Indiana asking if she might present the process there. She did, and opposite to Rokita’s, she filed the correct notification with the state, media investigations confirmed. There's additionally no disciplinary historical past on Bernard’s document, her lawyer acknowledged.
“Given the present political ambiance in america, Mr. Rokita’s feedback had been supposed to intensify public condemnation of Dr. Bernard, who legally offered official medical care,” Tuesday’s declare discover acknowledged.
One in all Bernard’s colleagues spoke out in a New York Occasions column final week in regards to the hazard she’s been put in, saying native police have been knowledgeable about issues for her bodily security.
The lawsuit targets Rokita as a person, Bernard’s lawyer defined, as a result of the statements he made about Bernard “exceed the overall scope of Mr. Rokita’s authority as Indiana’s Legal professional Normal.”
Ohio Legal professional Normal Dave Yost additionally appeared on Fox Information a couple of days earlier than Rokita saying there was “not a whisper wherever” of a 10-year-old being raped in Ohio. However two days later, a number of media stories confirmed a 27-year-old man was arrested and charged after police say he confessed to raping the kid on no less than two events.
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