The Indiana doctor who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim from Ohio says she has felt threatened over the many critics who have doubted the national headline-grabbing story.
Speaking on “CBS Evening News,” Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an ob-gyn, challenged those who questioned the veracity of the case to “come spend a day” in her clinic to witness the different difficult situations many women have found themselves in that require abortions.
In the 10-year-old girl’s case, she crossed state lines from Ohio — where abortions are restricted — to terminate the pregnancy in Indiana on June 30. She was six weeks and three days pregnant, making it too late for her to receive abortion under Ohio’s abortion law triggered by the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.
“Come spend a day in my clinic. Come see the care that we provide every single day,” Bernard said to those who don’t believe the girl’s story in an interview that aired Tuesday night.
“You know, the situations that people find themselves in, and in need of abortion care are some of the most difficult that you could imagine. And that’s why we, as physicians, need to be able to provide that care unhindered, that medical decisions need to be made between a physician and their patients,” Bernard told host Norah O’Donnell.
When asked if she has felt threatened since news of the appalling case broke, Bernard confirmed that “yes,” she has.
“It shows how, you know, abortion, instead of being part of health care, which it is — a needed, life-saving procedure, which it is, has been used to create a wedge between people politically and personally,” she said. “And it shows how far we have come and how sad that is.”
After Biden outlined the case, some lawmakers and media outlets labeled the case a politically motivated fallacy after no police reports could be found for the rape of a 10-year-old in Ohio.
Ohio’s conservative pro-life attorney general Todd Rokita suggested Bernard may have committed a crime by performing the abortion on the girl.
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