Indiana judge won't block probe over 10-year-old's abortion

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana's Republican attorney general can keep investigating an Indianapolis doctor who spoke publicly about providing an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim from neighboring Ohio, a judge ruled Friday.

An attempt to block a probe by Attorney General Todd Rokita's office was rejected by Marion County Judge Heather Welch. She also ruled Friday in a separate lawsuit that Indiana's abortion ban adopted in August violates the state's religious freedom law signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence in 2015. The Indiana abortion ban, however, has been on hold since mid-September as courts consider a challenge from abortion clinic operators who argue the ban violates the state constitution.

The judge's ruling on the investigation into Dr. Caitlin Bernard came two days after the attorney general's office asked the state medical licensing board to discipline Bernard, alleging she violated state law by not reporting the girl’s child abuse to Indiana authorities and broke patient privacy laws by telling a newspaper reporter about the girl’s treatment.

That account sparked a national political uproar in the weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, with some news outlets and Republican politicians suggesting Bernard fabricated the story. The girl had been unable to get an abortion in Ohio after a more restrictive abortion law took effect there.

Bernard filed a lawsuit against the state attorney general last month, arguing Rokita’s office was wrongly justifying the investigation with “frivolous” consumer complaints submitted by people with no personal knowledge about the girl’s treatment. Bernard and her lawyers maintain the girl’s abuse had already been reported to Ohio police before the doctor ever saw the child.

But the judge turned down...