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Penalty asked for doctor who spoke of 10-year-old's abortion

Ponder This

Well-Known Member
Not exactly.

The girl was raped in Ohio. She went to a doctor in Ohio and around that point, the case was reported to the legal authorities in Ohio (ultimately leading to a suspect being identified and charged).

The doctors in Ohio concluded (correctly or not) that the recent Ohio laws prevented them from legally performing an abortion for the girl so they contacted a doctor in Indiana and arranged for the girl to travel there for her abortion.

The Indiana doctor spoke to a journalists about the case in abstract, in the context of abortion laws and their real-world impacts. She didn't reveal anything that would allow the child to be identified (and some of her opponents actually demanded more detail, accusing her of making it up). It was actually the criminal case in Ohio that came closest to identifying the family, given that the suspect was the mother's partner and especially when a "journalist" door-stepped the mother on camera.

The specifics of the Indiana medical privacy laws and regulations will be key but in general, I'm not sure what the doctor actually said publicly generally wouldn't cross the line.

Since she hasn't mentioned the name of the victim, nobody's privacy was violated.
A physician has the obligation to denounce a rape, or any news of crime they witness to, while performing their duties.
I guess some American citizens tend not to understand that criminal law is public law. It is not private law, something to keep secret.

You don't need to say a person's name in order to identify him. The AG asserts that the girl was identified from the information the doctor gave to the reporter.

The doctor's defense appears to be to claim that the information the doctor revealed was already public knowledge (and not that the doctor didn't identify the girl or reveal information).
 
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