June 14, 2023

"There are people whose faces scrunch up a bit in discomfort."

Just days after the end of Roe v. Wade, Caitlin Bernard, an OB/GYN in Indiana, told the Indianapolis Star a heartbreaking story: She had recently been asked to perform an abortion on a 10-year-old Ohio girl who had been raped. In late May, the Indiana Medical Licensing Board held a hearing on Bernard. While they did not revoke her license, they fined Bernard $3,000 and issued a letter of reprimand, saying that by speaking out, she had violated the 10-year-old girl's privacy. This week, Gabriel Bosslet and Tracey Wilkinson, who are both friends and colleagues of Bernard, talk about her story, its lessons for physicians, and why advocacy is a professional responsibility.

"The pandemic showed us that as physicians it is intrinsic in our roles to speak up for issues of public health, patient safety, health safety, and doing that requires that we tell stories," Bosslet said. And yet, "When I talk to people about the things that I do, there are people whose face scrunch up a bit in discomfort."

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