The Indiana Healthcare Licensing Board in the midwestern United States has opened a disciplinary hearing against a physician immediately after she spoke out about supplying abortion care to a ten-year-old rape victim final June.

The physician, Caitlin Bernard, initially told her story to The Indianapolis Star newspaper to illustrate the quick effects of a Supreme Court selection to overturn the constitutional appropriate to an abortion.

That story sparked a national outcry, with abortion rights activists denouncing the hurdles the ten-year-old faced and opponents blasting Bernard for her actions.

At Thursday’s hearing, the board heard a complaint from Indiana’s Lawyer Basic Todd Rokita, a Republican and opponent of abortion rights, accusing Bernard of violating each state and federal law.

The complaint seeks “appropriate disciplinary action” against Bernard. The board is empowered to suspend or even revoke a doctor’s license.

Indiana Lawyer Basic Todd Rokita has denounced Caitlin Bernard for her actions in late June 2022 [File: Darron Cummings/AP Photo]The lawyer general’s workplace has alleged that Bernard violated Indiana law, by not reporting the rape to authorities, as nicely as federal requirements for patient privacy.

Bernard “has repeatedly and consistently spoken to the press to perpetuate the coverage of her patient’s private life”, the complaint mentioned.

Though the patient was by no means named in any of Bernard’s interviews, the complaint accuses Bernard of triggering “an intense media search” for data about the girl.

Bernard and her lawyers, nevertheless, have denied any violation of the Well being Insurance coverage Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the law that protects patient privacy.

At Thursday’s hearing, Bernard defended her capability as a physician to speak broadly about healthcare problems in the public interest.

“I believe that it is extremely vital for men and women to realize the actual-globe impacts of the laws of this nation about abortion,” Bernard mentioned. She added that hypotheticals hardly ever have the similar impact on public awareness.

In July of final year, Bernard’s employer, Indiana University Well being, issued a statement confirming the physician had complied with patient privacy laws.

Bernard has also rejected accusations that she did not file the appropriate paperwork to document the ten-year-old’s case.

She mentioned she followed protocol for reporting youngster abuse situations to hospital employees. News outlets like the New York Instances and National Public Radio have also reported that she complied with procedures for documenting abortions with the state.

At the time of the abortion on June 30, the rape was currently getting investigated by police in the child’s residence state of Ohio.

But with the US Supreme Court’s repeal final year of Roe v Wade — the 1973 selection that assured the constitutional appropriate to an abortion — Ohio was in a position to impose an current six-week abortion ban that had been mired in legal controversy given that 2019.

That forced the ten-year-old and her mother to seek abortion care across state lines, in Indiana. At the time Bernard 1st heard about the ten-year-old, she was six weeks and 3 days pregnant.

The youngster in the end received a medication abortion, and a 27-year-old suspect in the rape case was arrested in July.

Lawyer Kathleen DeLaney speaks on behalf of Caitlin Bernard in November 2022 [File: Tom Davies/AP Photo]Bernard’s public statements about the case sparked a political firestorm, with lots of anti-abortion advocates — and even prominent politicians like Ohio Representative Jim Jordan — casting doubt on the story’s veracity.

President Joe Biden, a Democrat, even referenced the story in the course of a news conference.

“A ten-year-old must be forced to give birth to a rapist’s youngster?” Biden told reporters, venting his outrage. “I cannot believe of something extra intense.”

Alice Morical, Bernard’s lawyer, mentioned that although her client had dealt with youngster abuse situations ahead of, this story place her beneath the microscope like by no means ahead of.

“Dr Bernard could not have anticipated the atypical and intense scrutiny that this story received,” Morical explained on Thursday. “She did not anticipate that politicians would say that she created the story up.”

Healthcare groups with ties to Bernard, like Planned Parenthood and Physicians for Reproductive Well being, have also come to her defence, arguing that attacks on her professionalism are “politically motivated”.

But at Thursday’s hearing, Indiana’s Deputy Lawyer Basic Cory Voight argued that it was Bernard who was advancing her personal political agenda.

“There’s been no case like this ahead of the board,” Voight mentioned. “No doctor has been as brazen in pursuit of their personal agenda.”

Vought’s words echoed that of Lawyer Basic Rokita. As early as July of final year, Rokita appeared on Fox News to slam Bernard as an “abortion activist acting as a doctor”. He promised at the time to investigate Bernard and “fight this to the end”.

Bernard sued to quit his investigation, which subpoenaed patient healthcare records, but in December, Marion County Judge Heather Welch denied her request.

The judge, nevertheless, did also rule that Rokita had violated confidentiality laws himself in publicly discussing his investigation on cable Television news devoid of 1st filing an official complaint.

Rokita’s media appearances, Welch mentioned, have been “clearly unlawful breaches of the licensing investigations statute’s requirement that personnel of the Lawyer General’s Workplace sustain confidentiality more than pending investigations till they are so referred to prosecution”.