In an indication of just how close the USA has become to Margaret Atwood's fictional Gilead, Indiana's Attorney General Todd Rokita has been talking to some right-wing news outlets in very Gileadian terms.
The background concerns the heartbreaking case of a pregnant 10-year old rape victim in Ohio, whom was forced to flee to neighbouring Indiana for an abortion, after Ohio was one of the first states to gleefully ban abortions after the "fetal heartbeat" is detected, considered to be after about just 6 weeks of pregnancy, in the aftermath of the US Supreme Court's historic decision to overturn historic abortion rights established by the 1973 Roe v Wade case.
Mr. Rockita clearly didn't like the young girl taking advantage of Indiana's laxer laws, and has been spouting off to any right-wing outlets that will have him (Fox news, of course) about how he was "gathering the evidence" against the Indiana doctor who carried out the (probably life-saving) procedure, including "looking at her licensure", after she "failed to report" the operation. He went further, calling the well-respected Dr. Caitlin Bernard "an abortion activist acting as a doctor", with "a history of failing to report".
Dr. Bernard is in the process of bringing a defamation lawsuit against the Attorney General, for "Mr. Rokita's false and misleading statements about alleged misconduct by Dr. Bernard in her profession".
Well, I hope the guy gets as much as they can ding him with, because this kind of witch hunt talk needs to be shut down as soon as possible. Among other things, America's claim to be "the land of the free" is on the line.
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