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Indiana Legal professional Basic Todd Rokita, pictured right here in 2016, is dealing with a lawsuit from Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an abortion supplier searching for to cease him from issuing subpoenas for her sufferers’ data.
Darron Cummings/AP
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Darron Cummings/AP
Indiana Legal professional Basic Todd Rokita, pictured right here in 2016, is dealing with a lawsuit from Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an abortion supplier searching for to cease him from issuing subpoenas for her sufferers’ data.
Darron Cummings/AP
An Indiana abortion supplier who got here underneath assault by the state legal professional basic has filed a lawsuit to dam him from subpoenaing her sufferers’ medical data – together with these of a 10-year-old rape sufferer she handled.
Within the lawsuit, Dr. Caitlin Bernard and her medical associate declare that state Legal professional Basic Todd Rokita has been issuing subpoenas to healthcare services for a few of their sufferers’ data, based mostly on complaints from people who find themselves not their sufferers and should dwell out of state. Rokita “took the extra step of issuing sweepingly broad doc subpoenas to a hospital system … for ‘your entire medical file’ of the affected person mentioned within the information tales,” in line with the swimsuit 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 prompt on Fox Information, with out offering proof, that Bernard had didn’t observe 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 legal professional, Kathleen Delaney, stated in an interview with NPR on Wednesday that she’s involved in regards to the impression of Rokita’s actions on medical doctors and their sufferers.
“I am involved that the actual goal behind these actions would possibly very effectively be, in my view, an effort to intimidate physicians who present abortion care and sufferers who search that care,” she stated.
After Rokita’s public statements about her, Bernard stated she confronted harassment and threats. Her legal professional despatched a cease-and-desist letter to Rokita in July, warning that he may face a defamation swimsuit if he continued to publicly query her skilled conduct with out proof.
BREAKING: An legal professional for Indiana Dr. Caitlin Bernard has despatched a stop and desist letter to Indiana Legal professional Basic Todd Rokita, after he prompt with out proof that she’d didn’t report an abortion supplied to a 10yo rape sufferer. Paperwork verify she did report it.
— Sarah McCammon📻 (@sarahmccammon) July 15, 2022
Delaney stated Bernard has not dominated out submitting a defamation swimsuit, however that she believes the scenario involving affected person data requires “pressing” consideration as a result of it’s placing sufferers’ personal well being info in danger.
“It is surprising to me that the legal professional basic is searching for entry to essentially the most private and personal healthcare data possible,” Delaney stated. “And it is onerous for me to know any professional goal behind such a request when there’s been completely no allegation that the care that was supplied by my purchasers was in any approach substandard.”
Rokita’s workplace stated it didn’t have an instantaneous remark.
Bernard’s swimsuit suggests Rokita is utilizing the state’s client grievance course of as a pretext to analyze Bernard and her colleague. Based on the submitting, Rokita’s subpoenas had 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 experiences about Bernard.
The swimsuit asks the court docket to challenge an injunction towards Rokita, arguing that in any other case, “Defendants will proceed to unlawfully harass physicians and sufferers who’re engaged in fully authorized conduct and regardless that neither the physicians nor sufferers have any complaints about their relationship.”
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