Dr. Caitlin Bernard finally received her Torchbearer Award. 

No, not the one given by the Indiana Commission for Women to recognize Hoosier women who make a difference in their communities. Bernard had been in the running for that award in 2023. But her unanimous nomination was rejected behind closed doors, as first reported by IndyStar in August — with Gov. Eric Holcomb pointing to proceedings challenging Bernard’s medical license. 

Instead, her Torchbearer Award came from Our Choice Coalition, an Indianapolis-based political action committee created after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

The group, which seeks to elect candidates for state and local offices who support abortions rights, opted to use the same name to make a point.

Bernard received the recognition during an event on Monday, Jan. 22, where women across the city gathered to hear about how she became a national figure in a post-Roe world. It was a sea of green hats, pantsuits and ascots — the color symbolizing abortion rights — in a state where the procedure is now mostly banned, with narrow exceptions for rape and incest, lethal fetal anomalies or serious risks to the mother’s life.

“I understand that many of you are struggling to find hope in Indiana right now,” Liane Hulka, the coalition’s founder, told attendees at the event in the Indiana Roof Ballroom. “Somewhere, deep down, you know we just can’t give up.”

She cited a new poll from Ball State University that found about 60% of Hoosiers agree that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Bernard, an OB-GYN, first made headlines in July 2022 for speaking about an abortion she provided to a 10-year-old rape victim who traveled to Indiana from Ohio, where a six-week state ban had already taken effect. The story sparked national outrage about abortion access.

As part of Monday’s event, columnist Connie Schultz asked Bernard several questions from a stage. 

“Why do some people spend so much time trying to control women’s bodies?” Schultz said.

“There’s a certain amount of fear that we are absolutely done with the patriarchy as it exists,” Bernard said. “We have only just begun to show how important it is to have women at every level of government… And if they can control us, they can prevent that.”

Her comments were met with applause from a supportive crowd. 

But when Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s face appeared on the screen, it was a different reaction. 

Women booed when they saw a 2022 clip of Rokita on Fox News promising to investigate Bernard for being “an abortion activist acting as a doctor — with a history of failing to report.”

Rokita’s accusations — that Bernard violated patient privacy laws and failed to properly report the child’s rape to authorities — eventually reached Indiana’s Medical Licensing Board. In a hearing, the board fined Bernard $3,000 for speaking to the press about her patient’s case, but did not find her in violation of the state’s laws for reporting child abuse. They also did not suspend her medical license.

The case, though, had a chilling effect on doctors across the nation.

“None of us want to be the next person on Fox News,” Dr. Tracey Wilkinson, an Indianapolis pediatrician and abortion rights advocate, told Mirror Indy.

Rokita, meanwhile, is facing a second Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission investigation in connection to his public comments about Bernard.

And on the same day Bernard received the award, Rokita joined thousands of anti-abortion advocates who rallied in downtown Indianapolis as part of Indiana March for Life on what would have been the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

At the Our Choice Coalition event, attendees reflected on the fall of the landmark court ruling.

“It’s unconscionable that we have a culture that wants to put women back under the constraints of their husband or any male,” said Linda Hanson, president of Indiana’s League of Women Voters. She marched in the 1960s wearing a coat hanger pin.

Hanson remembers when her close friend got pregnant in college and was afraid to tell her family. She said the young woman died junior year from complications of an unsafe illegal abortion.

“We will not go back,” Hanson said.

Mirror Indy reporter Mary Claire Molloy covers health. Reach her at maryclaire.molloy@mirrorindy.org. Follow her on X @mcmolloy7.