Conservatives respond to child rape arrest by vilifying the doctors who cared for her

Following the Arrest of a man Over the alleged rape and pregnancy of a 10-year-old girl, conservatives are attacking the doctor who treated her for allegedly failing to report the procedure. The Indiana Star However, reported on Thursday that Dr. Caitlin Bernard did report the incident. The conservatives simply didn’t bother to actually check the matter before launching their smear campaign, just as they didn’t bother to check the facts behind the ten-year-old’s rape and subsequent abortion before claiming it about fake news.

Todd Rokita, Indiana’s Republican attorney general, announced on Fox News Wednesday night that his office is investigating Bernard, the Indiana doctor who provided abortion services for the child who traveled from Ohio to Indiana to terminate a pregnancy after being raped . He also requested in a letter Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb helps investigate Bernard

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“First, this is an illegal immigration problem,” Rokita told Jesse Watters. “Then we have the rape and then we have this abortion activist who acts as a doctor and has a history of failing to report anything. So we collect the information. We are gathering the evidence as we speak and we will fight this to the end, including reviewing her license. If she didn’t report it in Indiana, it’s a crime — failing to report, intentionally failing to report.”

The station aired Bernard’s name and photo, a tactic previously used against abortion providers by longtime Fox News host Bill O’Reilly.

Rokita continued to blame the situation on “Marxists and socialists and those in the White House who want lawlessness at the border” and characterized Bernard as an “abortion activist” who wants to politicize along with the “lamestream media, the fake news” to grab the girls at.

“When so-called doctors cover up child rape, they need to be prosecuted,” Watters said.

There was no cover-up. The star identified public records indicating this Bernard actually filed a complaint with the Indiana Department of Health and the Department of Child Care disclosing the abortion. The report was filed on July 2, two days after the abortion procedure was performed and within the time frame required by Indiana law. A separate report was sent on June 22 to Franklin County Children Health Services in Ohio, which then contacted law enforcement. Bernard received a referral from a child abuse doctor in Ohio on June 27 and performed a medical abortion for the girl on June 30.

Kathleen Delaney, an attorney representing Bernard, said star that Bernard is considering legal action against people who attempt to “vilify” her and misrepresent her role in the case. “She did not violate any law, including patient privacy regulations, and she was not disciplined by her employer,” Delaney said.

In a tweet Wednesday evening, Bernard said her “heart breaks for all survivors of sexual assault and abuse.” I am so sad that our country is failing them when they need us most. Doctors must be able to provide people with the care they need, when and where they need it.”

Days before 27-year-old Gerson Fuentes’ arrest, Ohio Attorney General David Yost appeared on Fox News and said there was “not a shred of evidence” that the case was real and tried to shame him star for “running this thing on a single source that obviously has a knack for grinding.” Yost claimed, “We don’t know who the original doctor was in Ohio, if he even existed, but the bottom line is that if you’re a reporter and you’re assigned not to report, it’s a crime.” After Fuentes’ arrest, Yost took instead not acknowledging his previous comments publish a statement He expressed his condolences to the girl and support for law enforcement in their investigation.

Yost did not mention the doctor after the arrest, but other conservatives did. “So a 10-year-old girl in Ohio was raped by an illegal immigrant and could have had a legal abortion there because it threatened her life, but the doctors didn’t report it to the police and sent her to Indiana, and made a media story out of it to sell abortions to the public.” wrote Commentator Greg Price.

At this time Rolling Stone could not find any credible reports suggesting that doctors involved in the girl’s treatment failed to alert authorities to the situation.

The rape case attracted international attention immediately after the incident Overturning of Roe v. Calf, that allowed abortion in Ohio illegal beyond the point of detecting the fetal heartbeat, with the only exception if it is an “emergency that threatens the life or physical health of the pregnant person.” According to the Columbus ShippingLaw enforcement was brought to attention of pregnancy on June 22 through a referral from Franklin County Children Services. Detective Jeffrey Huhn testified at Gerson Fuentes’ arraignment that DNA samples confirmed Fuentes was involved in the pregnancy.

Prominent in the weeks before the arrest Right-wing pundits and government officials tried to discredit the story as a liberal pro-abortion fantasy. ​​Prominent media outlets, both fringe and mainstream, seized on the emerging narrative. After President Joe Biden alluded to the case in a speech last Friday, The Wall Street Journal called the story “imaginative” under the headline “An Abortion Story Too Good to Confirm.”

Now that the man suspected of being responsible for the attack has been arrested and a confession submitted to law enforcement, many who are intentionally casting a shadow over the veracity of the story are attempting to divert public attention from their own mistake by focusing on Fuentes’ alleged undocumented status focus and denigrate the doctor who offered potentially life-saving treatment to a child in a terrible situation.

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