the doctor who provided an abortion for
a ten year old rape victim is now suing the attorney general of Indiana for
defaming her and her reputation as Todd Rokita had as the story was coming out.
Immediately began attempting to downplay implying the facts of the story
were wrong or to the extent that they were right that the doctor was the person
we should be angry at.
Take a look at an appearance he had on Fox News.
>> Then we have this abortion activist acting as a doctor with
a history of failing to report.
So we're gathering the information, we're gathering the evidence as we speak and
we're gonna fight this to the end including looking at her licensure.
If she failed to report in Indiana, it's a crime for
to not report to intentionally not report.
>> Okay, so look, there's obviously a lot of issues with that video.
The fact that the attorney general finds out that this horrific act has happened
that it is compounded by the fact that the law there in Ohio is incredibly barbaric.
The thing he's fired up about is supposedly issues with this doctor's
reporting of facts about the case about the timeline.
That's the thing that he thinks needs to be investigated.
Not the actual crime itself, which created the situation,
not the legislative action in Ohio.
That compounded that made it far worse.
That necessitated the ten year old rape victim having to flee across state
lines just the doctor.
And of course it's even worse because he's not even write about the things he's
attempting to distract you with.
Just the next day health officials in Indiana released a document contradicting
Rocky's claim which you saw there on Fox News demonstrating.
That Caitlin Bernard is the doctor in this case,
had reported the procedure on the second of July.
In that report, she said she provided a medication abortion to
a 10-year-old abuse victim on June 30 who was approximately six weeks pregnant.
Indiana University health which employs the doctor has also
said it conducted a review and determined she had not violated any privacy laws.
And so he immediately began defaming her, implying not only that she had committed
some sort of legal act in this case, but that she had some sort of history of this.
And so thus the lawsuit.
In fact, her attorney sent a letter to him saying her client had suffered harm
because of his public statements about her of which you have now seen
Kathleen Delaney.
The lawyer says, statements that Dr. Bernard has a history of failing to
report which Mr. Rokita indicated would constitute a crime made in the absence of
reasonable investigation or any investigation whatsoever.
Let's be clear, serve no legitimate law enforcement purpose.
Given the current political atmosphere in the United States.
Mr. Rokita's comments were intended to heighten public condemnation of Dr.
Bernard who legally provided legitimate medical care.
The the lawyer saying intended there of course is that's what they think and
it seems like the clearest thing in the world Jessica that they
were attempting to get people angry at this doctor.
But also that that was just a tool of the larger effort to have people not think
about the fact that a 10-year-old was forced to flee a state to deal
with the product of the rape she had suffered.
But that you should be angry about this doctor instead for
some sort of bureaucratic thing.
>> Right, absolutely.
And this case is not unique.
It's not like this anomaly that happened at a time when it was convenient for
the left to take this story and talk about it and make the case for
why abortion is necessary, right?
That's absolutely not not the case.
The right wants to make it seem that way.
But in Ohio on average, someone under the age of 15 children have
had abortions 52 in a year, so one per week, that's a lot.
This is something that occurs really frequently.
They should do something to address that rather than criminalizing the doctor.
It's absolutely insane.
The miss focus here if they actually cared about children,
if they actually cared about the right to life or the right to good quality life or
the life after it's been born.
They would care a lot about those children.
But of course they're focusing the conversation on the doctor.
>> Exactly, yeah, I'm glad that you cited that statistic too,
that we're probably averaging about one case like this per week.
Now, of course this is, it's been more than a week since this story came out.
And I get that the national news is not going to track down every story like this
in the same way that they're not gonna focus on every mass shooting.
America is a country that is so fundamentally broken that it generates
things that should dominate the national conversation far too often for
it to be possible for them too.
And yet I have to wonder who is on average one person who has had to deal with
a situation like this because we can't forget that the fundamental problem is,
Ohio law and the laws of many states.
This sort of case could have happened
in a couple dozen states probably it can still happen.
The horror that we should feel coming out of this case.
What was revealed by this tragedy hasn't yet changed anything.
It's still just as possible for it to happen.
The only thing that's likely to have changed is the right might be a little
bit less inclined to try to pretend that the story didn't exist.
I believe that there are probably far more likely at this point to not engage with
it at all.
Like I don't think that they're gonna even pick this up.
They tried to do their thing on Fox where they made it about something else.
And once the facts came out, they pivoted to talking about undocumented migration.
But I think in the future they're just not going to engage with this because they
know it's not a topic that they can win on.
If people are thinking about the reality of the reproductive rights situation in
these states, it's never gonna look good for them.
>> Right, yeah it's not gonna look good for them.
But also if you're the type of person who's defaming someone on national
television, it's a great thing that this doctor is suing.
I think doctors that perform abortions should be more litigious in times like
these when people are saying terrible things about them on television,
because the settlement oftentimes in defamation lawsuits is money.
And the one thing members on the right care about, especially the grifters that
go on mainstream media from the right care about is money.
This is the way you get at them.
This is the way you make sure this doesn't happen again.
>> Yeah, and can we put up that b roll that we just had up for
a second because I think there's a part of this that isn't yet a part of the story,
but I would love for it to become a part if we could throw that up.
You see Todd Rokita there,
but you also see Jesse Waters Jesse Waters was all over this thing.
Like sure other people at Fox the lower Ingrams and stuff like that,
they did try to fool you into thinking that this horror hadn't happened.
That hadn't been made worse by choices made by generally elected Republican men.
But Jesse Watters was there the whole time.
Now, maybe he was a bit more careful with his language.
Maybe he didn't make the specific claims about lack of timely reporting like
Todd Rokita did, but he definitely attempted to convince people that this
story hadn't happened, that it's not something you should worry about.
That It was all being cooked up by abortion activists or whatever.
And of course, it's at a time when Fox News is already facing multiple defamation
lawsuits, generally from corporations that were involved in the 2020 election.
One would think they'd be a little bit more careful about that as of right now,
Jesse Watters isn't facing any sort of lawsuits or anything like that.
As I said, maybe he's been more careful, but he was just as eager as Todd Rokita to
misinform his audience intentionally about this to use it for his own political ends.
>> Yeah, and one last point on this,
the congressional testimony from that anti abortion activist, where she said,
well in this case, it actually wouldn't be an abortion.
The attorney general said in this case, it was justified.
But then he's on Fox News bashing the doctor the right is really falling apart
around this issue where there are so many cases where.
They see it's very clear that there's a reason why abortion is,
a medical procedure that is necessary and worth protecting and
they just can't defend themselves.
They're absolutely falling apart.
It's insane to watch.
>> Yeah, and that is one of the most telling bits of video that if it's
justified, okay, you can do it, but it's no longer an abortion, but
that just means they don't want to admit that they support abortions in some cases.
That's it the procedure is the same.
It of course has the same name.
It's such it's a weird like people reveal themselves,
they reveal their thought process when you press them.
And they definitely did that they know that their position isn't popular,
sure it's popular amongst Fox news viewers on the right Republican primary basis.
But if they could have won this by convincing people,
they would have done that.
They wouldn't have set up a multi decade scheme to pack the judiciary with
Christian nationalist zealots, they know that nobody actually agrees.
There's certainly not enough to formulate a majority.
And so anyway, look, I think the democratic plan to talk about this a lot.
Not really do much, but make sure that people have it on their mind advance
of the midterms that bothers me deeply because I think that if you're going to
sell yourself as being a passionate defender of a set of rights.
You should also be defending those rights, not just opining about it.
But I think it's not a terrible campaign strategy.
And it's gonna be interesting to see going forward how the right is gonna deal
with this.
I mean, we had the story coming out of Texas of the the woman who was
forced to carry the dead fetus for two weeks.
Like when you set up an absolutely inhumane legal structure as they have in
regard to reproductive rights, it is going to throw out unbearably cruel and
horrific stories on a weekly basis, if not more.
And it's only been a couple of weeks that we've already experienced
multiple of those.
>> Right, yeah not having Democrats do anything in the short term and
not really telling us what their plan is the in the long term.
Either if we reelect them during the midterms,
that's that's not a winning strategy, I'm sorry.
But everyday voters are not listening to what the Democratic Party is saying
every day.
And so unless they actually take action what people are looking to is them doing
something.
In the meantime there are a lot of things they can do AOC.
Has been a great advocate for all of the things they could do in the meantime they
could build abortion clinics on federal lands.
They could try again to codify Roe v Wade into law, they could establish networks.
So that women can get access to abortion pills via the mail
in states where abortion trigger laws have already gone into effect, but
they're not really doing any of this.
And instead we're getting a bunch of fundraising emails from Nancy Pelosi.
This is not gonna get people to go out and show up to vote.
>> Yeah.
I think it's an effective strategy to say like,
hey, we're on the right side of this issue.
But unless, like you said, you demonstrate that you're going to protect those values
that you claim to have and protect those rights that are in line with your values.
Your voters are gonna show up for you.
>> Yeah and it opens up a possibility right now.
So look, supposedly on some area, like I think in terms we're
gonna be talking about codifying the right to same sex marriage in a little bit.
Schumer is saying that he's like working behind the scenes trying to get some
Republicans on board or whatever.
And I get that that's always the way that they're gonna pursue this.
And it might be on some issues,
like trying to get the senate to vote to codify reproductive rights.
They're probably not gonna do that.
And so that provides an opportunity.
I know that Democrats find the idea of forcing the right to
actually filibuster to be unacceptable.
They love the filibuster more than we love anything and
yet they don't want people to have to filibuster when they filibuster.
But think about if they were to force it right now, knowing what
we know about support for reproductive rights, put it up for a vote and
if the right wants to, it's a filibuster, it then have them actually do that.
Have them actually hold the floor for an hour and then a day and
then a week and then the next three months if necessary.
Have it be indisputable.
A constant reminder of how out of step with the majority of the country
the right is and and honestly do it because it's the right thing to do.
But even if you don't have that in you, if you're so soulless in a political sense,
then do it for political pragmatism.
Have the months between now and the midterm elections be that constant
reminder, an indisputable reminder that the Republican Party doesn't give
a damn about, I don't know, 150 million Americans and what happens to them.
But they're not gonna do that.
They're gonna try to like wheel and deal behind the scenes and
if they can't make it happen, maybe they'll put it up for a vote once.
It'll be filibustered in that they will just shut it down and
then we'll move on and that'll be there, just so bad at the political side of this.
>> Yeah, it's been a long time since Ted Cruz read me bedtime story in 2013 when he
was reading Green eggs and ham when they actually had to filibuster.
When they didn't want things to go to a vote and
they didn't want Obama care to go to a vote.
And so they had to get up on the mic and talk for hours and
make fools of themselves.
They did and that's exactly what they should be forced to do right now.
And I get nervous because it seems like every time they have close to a margin or
they have a margin in the house and in the Senate,
they're always conveniently the exact amount of votes.
They have the margin of people who are wavering on the issues of the substantive
legislation that we're voting on right now.
It's mentioned in cinema when we're talking about build back better and
when we're talking about roe v wade, we have people like Henry Clayer.
But it always feels like the democrats are playing this game of maintaining
the status quo and always ensuring that we have a few moderates that are willing,
to not votes, that legislation doesn't pass.
And let's keep in mind people like Nancy Pelosi are benefiting from the status quo.
She has a ton of money in stock right now, really teetering on the line of insider
trading every single day with the stock holdings of her and her husband.
It's just scary because they're benefiting from the way things are,
they don't have a real inclination to make substantive change.
That's really scary because even if we get those votes in the midterms,
will anything happen?
>> Exactly, yeah the only thing I would add would be moderates.
>> Yeah.
Because shipping 150 million people of their rights is hardly moderate, but
they will always get, the media will provide them with the immense benefit of
implying their position is naturally reasonable.
Everyone else is a crazy ideologue, the position they hold politically.
That's the only reasonable thing.
By the way, before we move on,
I just wanna throw out a couple more things about this.
So Caitlin Bernard,
the doctor who performed this abortion is I think understandably concerned
about what can happen when you're demonized by the right over this.
So last year she testified in a case involving abortion restrictions
in Indiana, she said that she was forced to stop providing first trimester first
trimester abortions at a clinic in South bend.
She did that after she was alerted by planned parenthood that
a kidnapping threat had been made against her daughter and related to the FBI.
So they were again, the pro life people were implying that they would kidnap and
potentially murder her daughter by the way the names of six abortion providers as
well as their educational backgrounds.
And places of work were listed on the website of a group,
an anti abortion group called Right to Life mitch mitch Kiana in a section of
the website titled local abortion threat.
Her name was listed amongst other doctors there and we know that the right
periodically likes to threaten violence or bomb one of these clinics are trying to
burn them down or more murder the doctors who are performing there again.
The pro life people like to murder these doctors by the way that particular group,
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett had ties to it.
So isn't that fun?
They got one of their own on the Supreme Court and
accomplished their goals that way.
Anyway, finally,
on august second Kansas is gonna be voting on a state constitutional amendment.
That would clarify that the state's bill of Rights does not protect Kansans right
to an abortion as it stands right now.
The judicial interpretation is that it does this will not outlaw abortion there,
but it is a prerequisite for them to outlaw abortion there.
So stay tuned in the next couple of weeks to find out what happens in
Kansas as well.
>> I just don't understand republicans conception of how our government works in
democracy in this case,
because they're totally in favor of amending state constitutions.
People who are elected to public office, there can make a reasonable determination
of how they should change the state constitution.
But if we were to ever think about doing that at the national level,
have the people who have been elected to represent the population there make
substantive changes.
It doesn't apply.
So why is it that, at the state level, this is an acceptable thing to do.
But to have popular policy at the national level,
isn't What is the disconnect that is happening there?
Where that's okay?
>> I don't know I mean, look, there's a bunch of them, so it's possible.
I'm forgetting things, but I'm trying to think of like an amendment to
the constitution that would be in their best interests like that.
They would be a fan of it.
I mean, look, they love to talk about the Second Amendment, but of course,
when it was added, the clear text of it isn't anything like the way they
understand it now, let alone expanding the vote and things like that.
Yeah, generally amending the constitution has not worked well for the right