An Indiana doctor has revealed that has faced harassment since news of her performing an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim made national headlines.
In the weeks since the landmark ruling Roe v. Wade was overturned, Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an ob-gyn, has become a household name and has been criticized by public officials, including Indiana's attorney general, Todd Rokita.
Bernard spoke on CBS Evening News and challenged those who questioned her to "come to spend a day" in her clinic to witness the various difficult circumstances many women have found themselves in.
"Come spend a day in my clinic. Come see the care that we provide every single day," Bernard said in an interview that aired Tuesday (July 26) night.
The 10-year-old girl crossed state lines from Ohio - where abortions are restricted - to terminate the pregnancy in Indiana on June 30.
She was six weeks and three days pregnant, therefore unable to receive an abortion under Ohio’s abortion law, triggered by the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision.
Watch a clip from Bernard's interview below:The story generated widespread attention and controversy after the doctor told the Indianapolis Star about her patient. The girl's awful plight was then mentioned by President Joe Biden as an example of the fallout from the SCOTUS ruling.
"You know, the situations that people find themselves in, and in need of abortion care are some of the most difficult that you could imagine," Bernard told CBS Evening News' Norah O’Donnell.
"And that’s why we, as physicians, need to be able to provide that care unhindered, that medical decision need to be made between a physician and their patients," she added.
Bernard had previously revealed in an op-ed for The Washington Post that she had "been threatened" by pro-life individuals.
When O’Donnell asked the doctor if she has felt threatened since the news of the horrendous case broke, Bernard confirmed that she has.
"It shows how, you know, abortion, instead of being part of health care, which it is, a needed, life-saving procedure, which it is, has been used to create a wedge between people politically and personally," she said. "And it shows how far we have come and how sad that is."
Soon after the case gained national attention, Gerson Fuentes, 27, was arrested and confessed to authorities to raping and impregnating the young girl at least twice, when she was 9 years old.
Fuentes is being held on a $2 million bond after being charged with the felony rape of a minor under 13 years old in the case and is due back in court.
"Unfortunately, sexual assault in children is not uncommon. I’m not the only provider who has taken care of young children needing abortion care," Bernard said.
Since the Dobbs decision, the ob-gyn declared that women across the country are struggling to get the abortion care that they’d had access to just months ago.
"We’re hearing stories all across the country of people who are in dire circumstances, complications of their pregnancies or traumatic situations and are in need of abortion care and are not able to get it," she said.
"This will affect our ability to take care of miscarriages. This will affect our ability to take care of complications in early pregnancy that could kill someone. This will affect our ability to provide infertility treatment, and contraception. This list goes on," she added.