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Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita took issue Thursday with state health officials’ recent decision not to release individual terminated pregnancy reports and issued an advisory opinion declaring them public record.
The opinion was issued in response to a request from State Sen. Andy Zay, R-Huntington, who noted that the Indiana Department of Health had only recently restricted access to the reports after allowing them to be public since 1973.
He questioned how the officials could enforce the state’s near-total abortion ban, approved last year, without access to the records.
“What came to my attention this last legislative session, and a little bit before this, there was a stop to that reporting. So with that, I was concerned about how we are going to hold our laws and our folks in the abortion space accountable,” Zay said at a news conference with Rokita. “And so I asked for an advisory opinion from the Attorney General’s office to determine whether these reports needed to continue to be presented publicly. And so we can use them as tools to hold those around the periphery of abortion clinics and abortion doctors accountable.”
Indiana law bans abortion except in limited cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal anomaly, or to protect the life or health of the mother.
Rokita, a Republican who is seeking re-election, said his answer to Zay’s query is straightforward and clear.
“It’s always a public record. And the reason that’s important is because the legislature for decades now has given the Attorney General’s Office, the enforcement authority over statutes regarding doctors including their compliance within pro-life laws,” Rokita said.
Roktia’s 11-page advisory opinion notes that in December 2023, the Indiana Public Access Counselor Luke Britt, at the request of the chief legal counsel at the Department of Health declared terminated pregnancy reports were medical records and could be withheld in their entirety.
But Rokita said that portions of the reports could be redacted to solve whatever problem the Department of Health has with the releasing the report, but he added that the department never had the conversation with his office.
He also noted that the reports do not have patient names so therefore patients cannot be easily identified. However, others disagree with him and note how with fewer abortion procedures being performed in the state due to the limitations on the practice it could be easy to extrapolate at person’s identity.
According to the Indiana Department of Health’s terminated pregnancy report for 2023 quarter four, there were 46 abortions performed. The number was 1,724 for the same period in 2022.
Democrat response
The two women seeking the Democratic nomination for Indiana Attorney General strongly objected to Rokita’s opinion that the records are public.
“Hoosier women are outraged by Attorney General Todd Rokita’s actions today regarding private health data,” Destiny Wells said. “There is no excuse for subjecting Hoosiers to Todd Rokita’s state sanctioned breach of patient confidentiality.”
Beth White called the opinion a “gross display” by Rokita.
“The whole point that Todd Rokita is identifying here is he wants people to go out and investigate women who are exercising their legal right to this procedure and then refer them to his office so that he can prosecute them. It’s cynical, and it’s sad,” White said.
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