Fox 59 reported Tuesday that Dr. Caitlin Bernard has moved to sue Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita for defamation. Dr. Bernard is the abortionist at the center of the incident involving a 10-year-old girl from Ohio who traveled to Indiana for an abortion after becoming pregnant through rape. She's filed a tort claim, which is considered the first step in such a lawsuit. "The tort claim filing triggers a 90-day investigative period for the state to settle the claim, after which a lawsuit can be filed," the report mentioned.
According to the local news outlet:
“Mr. Rokita’s false and misleading statements about alleged misconduct by Dr. Bernard in her profession constitute defamation,” said Attorney Kathleen A. DeLaney, who represents Bernard.
The lawsuit comes on the heels of a cease and desist issued by DeLaney, which was itself a response to Rokita’s continued public comments aimed at Bernard. Rokita went on Fox News on July 13 and called Bernard an “abortion activist acting as a doctor” and said she had a “history of failing to report” and even threatened to go after Bernard’s license.
As Madeline covered last week, Rokita announced such an investigation on Wednesday night while on Fox News' "Jesse Watters Primetime."
Rokita had mentioned that Dr. Bernard has "a history of failing to report." The abortionist had, in fact, been accused by Indiana Right to Life in 2018, after accessing public documents, of failing to report underage abortions, as Megan Fox over at our sister site of PJ Media highlighted.
There have been a lot of questions surrounding the 10-year-old rape victim, a story first reported by The Indianapolis Star on July 1, which briefly mentioned Dr. Bernard and the 10-year-old. That report, as Megan and I have highlighted, provided very little clarity and misstated Ohio abortion law:
Hours after the Supreme Court action, the Buckeye state had outlawed any abortion after six weeks. Now this doctor had a 10-year-old patient in the office who was six weeks and three days pregnant.
Could Bernard help?
Ohio's abortion law does not outlaw "any abortion after six weeks" but rather bans most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, at around that stage. Further, there are exceptions for the life of the mother and when there is a "medical emergency."
As Spencer highlighted early last week, Ohio Attorney General David Yost made clear on "Jesse Watters Primetime" Monday night that the 10-year-old would have qualified for such an exemption and would not have had to travel out of state to receive treatment.
Last Wednesday, The Columbus Dispatch – a sister site of The Indianapolis Star – reported that 27-year-old Gerson Fuentes was arrested for the crime. ICE has confirmed he is an illegal immigrant from Guatemala.
Fox 59 emphasized that they "obtained the report showing that Bernard did file the report as required and filed it within the timeframe required."
As Matt covered, though, Fox News Digital received documents showing that Dr. Bernard input Fuentes' age as 17 years old, despite him being 27. This is not mentioned in the local news outlet's reporting.
Even more questions remain as it relates to Fuentes's relationship with the victim's mother, who appeared to be defending him in an interview with Telemundo.
Megan is particularly concerned that she has received no answer from Franklin County CPS as to whether or not the mother's children were taken into state custody.
After this interview, Franklin County DCS formally denied my request and refused to answer if they took protective custody of the children or not. https://t.co/DCUcADLmek
— Megan Fox (@MeganFoxWriter) July 18, 2022
Indiana's abortion laws were also in the news after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the state to enforce a parental notification law that had been blocked as a result of Roe v. Wade, which was overturned last month by the Court in the Dobbs v. Jackson decision.
A Tuesday press release from Rokita's office also celebrated rulings from lower courts regarding banning abortions based on race, sex, or disability, as well as dismemberment abortions.