Inspector Javert would have applauded such implacable dedication. The Indianapolis Star, quoting Todd Rokita (in the headline above), reports: "Rokita is known as a socially conservative firebrand, unafraid to clash with those who are more moderate within his own party, including Gov. Eric Holcomb. Republicans believe he could eventually seek a higher office, such as the governor's office or the Senate."
On Fox News Wednesday night, the Indiana AG pledged to go after the OB-GYN who had reported the rape of a 10-year old: "We're gathering the evidence as we speak, and we're going to fight this to the end, including looking at her licensure. If she failed to report it in Indiana, it's a crime for – to not report, to intentionally not report."
In addition to issuing threats against the physician, AG Rokita lays blame, "This is a horrible, horrible scene caused – caused by Marxists and socialists and those in the White House who want lawlessness at the border," just before accusing the doctor of politicizing the situation.
Accusations, threats, and intimidation are par for the course for ambitious Republicans in positions to employ the strong arm of the law against political opponents, including doctors. That's why in Texas, for instance, doctors are afraid of being sued under state law to offer medical treatment to women undergoing complications during pregnancy until the woman's life is in danger. This situation prompted the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to issue a directive reinforcing federal law that protects patients when an emergency medical condition exists:
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) provides rights to any individual who comes to a hospital emergency department and requests examination or treatment. In particular, if such a request is made, hospitals must provide an appropriate medical screening examination to determine whether an emergency medical condition exists or whether the person is in labor. If an emergency medical condition is found to exist, the hospital must provide available stabilizing treatment or an appropriate transfer to another hospital that has the capabilities to provide stabilizing treatment.
The Lone Star State (like the Hoosier state) has more than its share of socially conservative firebrands, one of whom stepped into the limelight with his own election-year preening:
Are these 'pro-life' politicians motivated by Christian charity? Is the embrace of 'liberty,' and a commitment to limited government, what moves the leaders of the Republican Party? I suggest we're seeing something uglier and more authoritarian.
July 20, 2022 postscript: Let's spell this out just a bit more. The most extreme state bans on abortion, including the ban in Ohio state, that would require a 10-year old to carry a pregnancy to term are brutally cruel. Most Republican operatives (such as the Indiana and Texas attorneys general and Fox News personalities) have flatly and consistently refused to grapple with this barbaric injustice. Instead they have deflected, threatened, and sought to intimidate. Alternatively, proponents of these laws who acknowledge valuing a six week old fetus over a traumatized child have embraced a religious view that a majority of Americans do not and should not accept.
For anyone who rejects white Christian nationalism and embraces a commitment to equal rights and justice for women, the choice between forced pregnancy to term, or an individual and family's right to make reproductive decisions, is not difficult. The state has no reasonable grounds for denying a woman's choice in such circumstances. Republicans, waging a campaign of intimidation, have made physicians fearful of providing standard of care for women experiencing miscarriage or other problem pregnancies. This endangers the life, health, and well being of women.
Neither an embryo nor a fetus is a person. The United States Constitution recognizes the rights of people. In a nation of laws, so should state governments. The religious views of Catholics or the evangelical Christian right should not hold sway.
Many Americans, who are hardly religious fanatics, may find that their moral intuitions change as a pregnancy nears term. Is there a compelling state interest in preserving the life of a fetus at eight and a half months (for instance), rather than six or ten weeks? There may be reasonable grounds for debate at some stage of prenatal development. That debate is for another day. The rush of red states to enact abortion bans is antithetical to a free society and it poses grave risks to the health of women.
A final note: the United States Supreme Court was on a tear during its 2020-21 session with rulings that sharply diverged from longstanding precedents regarding reproductive rights, the regulation of firearms, and climate change legislation. In every case the majority issued decisions consistent with the agenda of the Republican Party (as it did consistently, over several sessions of the court, in its rulings on voting rights and gerrymandering). In September 2020, a Marquette Law School poll asked, "Overall, how much do you approve or disapprove of the way the US Supreme Court is handling its job?" The responses 22 months ago were 66% approval and 33% disapproval. In July 2022 the same question elicited only 38% approval and 61% disapproval. The decisions of the Supreme Court's Republican majority, in lockstep with the an increasingly extreme party, have lost the veneer of evenhanded justice, challenging the legitimacy of the court itself.