The Indiana Supreme Court issued a reprimand of the state’s conservative attorney general on Thursday for comments he made about an abortionist during a July 2022 Fox News interview. While the public reprimand may not seem like a big deal, it is. It represents yet another example of the weaponization of state bars.
On Thursday, the Indiana Supreme Court issued a six-page opinion in a disciplinary complaint docketed as “In the Matter of Theodore E. Rokita.” Rokita, who goes by Todd, is the state’s Republican attorney general.
As the Indiana Supreme Court’s opinion explained, on July 13, 2022, Rokita “appeared on a national television program to discuss an Indiana physician who had performed an abortion on a ten-year-old rape victim from Ohio.” That appearance, on Jesse Watters’ Fox News program, followed a public outcry over abortionist Caitlin Bernard publicly discussing an abortion she had performed on a 10-year-old rape victim.
Bernard’s disclosure of her patient’s private medical information seemed a transparent attempt to influence Indiana’s abortion law. It came mere weeks before the Indiana General Assembly prepared for a special session to consider enacting measures to protect the unborn in the wake of Roe’s reversal.
The Indianapolis Star included details of the abortion in a July 1 pro-abortion piece that opened with a vignette Bernard had relayed to a Star reporter at an abortion rally:
On Monday three days after the Supreme Court issued its groundbreaking decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist, took a
