One of the worst things to happen to the anti-abortion-rights contingent was when, just a week after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Indiana doctor Caitlin Bernard reported that she had performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim who had to travel from Ohio — where abortion had been immediately banned, thanks to a trigger law that went into effect as soon as the Supreme Court delivered its very bad decision.
A whole lot of people who had otherwise thought things might be okay without abortion rights suddenly began to rethink how great of an idea that was. Because let’s be real — many of them imagined that those who suffered would be sluts who needed to learn a thing or two about personal responsibility. You know, the ones who were supposedly so rich that they were “using abortion as birth control.” They weren’t thinking about 10-year-olds being forced to give birth to their rapists’ babies.
Naturally, Republicans in Indiana got to work immediately, trying to figure out how to punish the doctor who let that one slip. They settled on claiming that she violated the patient’s right to privacy by telling the Indy Star about her situation.
And now, finally, after two damn years, that bullshit is over.
With the approval of a federal judge, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita has officially dropped his lawsuit against Indiana University Health and IU Healthcare Associates.
A federal judge in Indianapolis initially granted IU Health’s motion to dismiss the case in June, prompting Rokita to file an amended complaint in July. His office then sought the case’s dismissal last week, writing that the state’s initial complaints have been satisfied by actions IU Health has taken since The Star first reported on the girl’s case.
These actions include continuing to train employees not to talk about patients in public spaces and informing employees that if they are contacted by a reporter, they must inform the public relations or communications departments before responding, Rokita’s dismissal motion said.
“We are pleased the information this office sought over two years ago has finally been provided and the necessary steps have been taken to accurately and consistently train their workforce to protect patients and their health care workers,” Rokita said Monday in a statement.
Yeah, except the thing is, IU says it’s had these policies in place all along. Dr. Bernard, also, did not actually violate the patient’s privacy because she did not release any identifying information. Just information that made anti-abortion-rights creeps look really bad.
“IU Health has and will continue to maintain its robust HIPAA compliance policies and training for its team members, as it has for years,” a statement from IU read. “While we are pleased the Indiana Attorney General’s office voluntarily moved to dismiss the case, we are disappointed the state’s limited taxpayer resources were put toward this matter after the first complaint was dismissed by the Court on the merits.”
Now, this is a good thing, but the timing does seem a little suspect. “Voices for Life,” an anti-abortion-rights group, has recently filed its own lawsuit to force the Indiana Department of Health to give it access to Terminated Pregnancy Reports (TPRs) again. Basically, they are a bunch of incredible creeps who think they should be able to personally review them in order to ensure that abortion providers are following the law — which, horrifically enough, outlaws all abortions except in cases of rape and incest (up to 10 weeks), fatal fetal anomalies and the life or physical health of the mother.
In Australia, they say, "Not every creature in Australia can kill you ... but it wants to." We can say, "Not every Republican can punish women for have a vagina ... but they want to. "
So - wait - the anti-abortion folks wanted the state AG to prosecute the doctor for supposedly violating HIPAA by talking about her patient (despite the fact that she gave no identifying information), but now they're suing the Dept of Health to release info to them that would violate HIPAA? I shouldn't be so stunned by the hypocrisy, but it's hard not to be.