Todd Rokita and Ken Paxton want to be the conscience of everyone
It appears the moral obliviousness that ails Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita is contagious.
John Krull, publisher, TheStatehouseFile.com
Let’s hope there’s a cure.
Rokita has engaged in a campaign to discourage doctors from providing proper medical care for 10-year-old rape victims. His vendetta against an Indiana obstetrician and gynecologist who performed an abortion for an Ohio girl who had become pregnant after being raped made national news, earned Rokita a public reprimand from the Indiana Supreme Court for violating ethics standards and wasted thousands upon thousands of taxpayer dollars.
The Indiana attorney general presented himself as the defender of the 10-year-old’s rights.
As far as anyone can tell, though, neither the little girl nor her mother ever asked for his help. Nor—again, as far as anyone can tell—did the girl or her mother ever complain about the care the doctor provided.
No, Todd Rokita just assumed he was in a better position to decide what care was best for a little girl who had been raped than the girl herself, her mother or her doctor.
Because he’s Todd Rokita—and they’re not.
It would be reassuring to think Rokita’s moral cluelessness is an isolated incident, but it isn’t.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has decided to go Indiana’s attorney general one better—or, actually, worse.
Rokita tried to discourage doctors from performing abortions for young rape victims, thus compounding the act of violation and forcing children to endure ordeal after ordeal.
Paxton has decided to force a 31-year-old Texas woman with a life-threatening pregnancy to carry the baby to term, even though the child is bound to die either way and continuing the pregnancy endangers the mother’s life.
Paxton did so after the pregnant woman went to court to seek an exemption from Texas’ draconian abortion ban. The court granted the exemption.
It was at that point Paxton opted to insert himself into the process.
He asked the Texas Supreme Court to intervene. The court halted the lower court’s order.
Paxton also sent letters to three hospitals, threatening lawsuits if they performed the abortion for the woman.
Because—just like Todd Rokita—Ken Paxton thinks he is in a better position to decide what medical care is right for this poor woman than she or her doctors are.
Because he’s Ken Paxton—and they’re not.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about all of this is that Rokita and Paxton think they have the standing to make moral decisions or issue moral lectures to anyone.
Rokita, of course, has been reprimanded once by the Indiana Supreme Court—and he may yet earn additional disciplinary action from the court. As part of the agreement that produced the reprimand, he acknowledged in an affidavit, under penalty of perjury, that he had violated rules of conduct for attorneys.
Then, in a statement released after the reprimand became public, he said he didn’t really mean it—which has begun another preliminary investigation into his conduct.
This came following another curious episode. The doctor who performed the young rape victim’s abortion sued Rokita, basically just to get him to leave her alone. The judge tossed the suit on technical grounds, but in doing so said Rokita violated confidentiality laws. Rokita responded by trying to overturn the ruling in a case he technically won because the judge hurt his feelings while pointing out an obvious truth.
Let’s also not forget the weird incident that started Rokita’s tenure as attorney general. He had a lucrative job in the private sector that he hoped to continue even after taking office, thus turning being attorney general into a side hustle. He asked the state’s ethics commission for an opinion.
When he received the opinion, he claimed it vindicated him—but he’s fought ever since to keep anyone else from seeing it.
For his part, Paxton has used one delaying tactic after another since 2015 to evade securities fraud charges. Earlier this year, he was impeached by the Texas House of Representatives on corruption charges with nearly three-quarters of his fellow Republicans in the chamber voting against him. He managed to avoid conviction and removal in the Senate, in part because the presence of his wife, a state senator, complicated the task of trying him.
These are the guys who think they have the stature to make moral and family-planning decisions for everyone.
Yeah.
Right.
FOOTNOTE: John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The views expressed are those of the author only and should not be attributed to Franklin College.
The City-County Observer posted this article without opinion, bias, or editing.
Nothing like some liberal tripe to start the day off. Krull must be right because he’s Krull…and they’re not. I see how that works in his less than deep mind.
.
Thank you VICTORY FOR RUSSIA for meaningless, name-calling drivel: pure and clear signs you don’t know anything about the subject, you don’t care about the subject, or you are just too dumb to do anything other than call people liberals.
____
Todd Rokita and Victory for Russia believes the State of Indiana has the right to steal the family’s decision on how to address the predicament of a raped, 10-year old girl who was forcibly impregnated by her old-man monster-attacker.
1. Rokita and Victory for Russia are wrong. The State does not have ultimate power over internal family decisions. They do that in Russia, not in America.
2. It is NOT LIBERAL to protect want to keep the State out of what are purely internal family decisions on your own 10-year old daughter.
3. It IS CONSERVATIVE, in fact, to want to protect the personal, private rights of families, and seek to keep the damn State OUT OF OUR PRIVATE FAMILY DECISIONS.
Move to Russia, Victory.
Spot on.
Spot on Victory.
Besides coloring outside the context, you are spending human lives for political agendas and your own vanity in print as the moral conscience.
The circumstances of one’s conception, be it rape or illness, does not determine the value of one’s life. But leftest like you beat on the extreme moniority of cases to justify the majority of abortions which are preformed as birth control.
Didn’t read the full article because I know the failed reasoning logical fallacies of this argument well enough towrite it, but I read enough that I now feel the need for a shower.
Do you even think about what you are writing? Yuck!
Let’s clear Jerry.
You are advocating that no woman has ANY right to make decisions about her own reproductive choices. NONE!
There must be a middle ground. You must make exceptions for women to make their own choices, without interference from the State, especially when the life of the woman is in danger.
BUT NO! Who is extreme here? WHO? A man forcibly rapes and impregates a 10-year old girl, and STILL you won’t make an exception that THAT CHOICE must be left up the that family, not the State or Todd Rokita.
But no. NO EXCEPTIONS JERRY!
One of us considers women property with no rights. And it is you Jerry.
This is the issue. Women are cattle to you, it certainly appears.
(…you two are making fools of yourselves.)
American Jack A.. believe the science. Science says what is concieved by a male and female human, has a unique human DNA, is alive in a woman, and is born a human is a living human being. Where is the middle ground in that? You can be pro abortion, but be honest about what abortion is. The violent destruction of an innocent and unique human life.
You are killing an innocent human life. Yes, I take exception to that. Your blithering does change the fact that 3,000 times everyday abortion is used to end a human life as a method of birth control.
American Jack A, please show me where I ever said a woman does not have reproductive choices? Unlike you I don’t support a mother’s right to kill her child for any reason.
I believe the UnAmerican Jack troll is completely off his/her feed, given the preponderance of insults in his/her post. At first I thought he/she was trying to emulate the ball player, but the ball player actually was capable of hitting the ball. Alas, UnAmerican Jack keeps missing it.
Haha!…in fact, Victory for Russia, you are making my point!
You are unable to actually discuss the issue. Krull is better than you! Unable to make a counterpoint. Still won’t. No ideas. No depth. Too weak. Too dumb to try. More like a bad insult comic. Ding! Ding! Ding!
Shallow Howler Jack the Troll speaking of “depth” with another barrage of insults. Now, that’s funny.
Comments are closed.