Maybe someday, there will be a new island formed just off the coast of Hawaii.FORT WAYNE – Fort Wayne’s lone surgical abortion provider is suing to stop a new county ordinance from being enforced.
Dr. George Klopfer, operator of Fort Wayne Women’s Health, is challenging a county law that requires doctors who don’t live in Allen County or surrounding counties or who don’t have admitting privileges to area hospitals to provide contact information to area emergency rooms and the local health department.
Klopfer lives in Illinois but is based out of South Bend. He also performs abortions in Fort Wayne and Gary.
The lawsuit has not been formally filed. Although the lawsuit was mailed Thursday, it was believed to be sitting in a pile of unopened mail Friday in the Allen County clerk’s office.
In a copy obtained by The Journal Gazette, the suit names the Fort Wayne-Allen County Department of Health and the county health commissioner as defendants and seeks an injunction halting the enforcement of the ordinance and that it be declared unlawful and unconstitutional.
The ACLU of Indiana and the Center for Reproductive Rights, based in New York, are representing Klopfer.
“These additional rules do nothing to protect patients’ safety and only serve to compromise Dr. Klopfer’s ability to provide his patients with quality medical care,” said Ken Falk, legal director at the ACLU of Indiana, in a written statement released Friday.
In April, the Allen County commissioners passed the new law, known as the patient safety ordinance, with input from area doctors. The law is set to take affect Tuesday. Three doctors, including Klopfer, have registered so far with the health department to comply with the ordinance, according to health department records.
Although he is challenging the ordinance, Klopfer intends to comply with it in the meantime. He does not want to risk paying the maximum $1,000 fine for violating the ordinance, he said during a phone interview Friday.
Klopfer believes that only the state of Indiana has jurisdiction to regulate doctors and medical facilities. His medical license allows him to practice anywhere in the state, he said, and the county shouldn’t be able to interfere.
His clinic is also licensed by the state and operates under state regulations, Klopfer said
Those regulations require him to provide emergency contact information to patients and keep a written procedure for providing emergency medical care and contact numbers, according to the copy of the lawsuit.
The suit also argues that the county’s ordinance is unconstitutionally vague, that it discriminates against certain classes of doctors, that it violates patients’ privacy rights and represents an undue burden on the patients to obtain an abortion.
The lawsuit states there are no provisions in the ordinance to protect the privacy or the names of the patients seeking medical care from these doctors, which could keep women from seeking services.
“That this information will remain confidential is crucial to their decision to seek these medical services,” the lawsuit states.
If Klopfer’s clinic were shut down for not complying with the ordinance, that would force women to travel long distances to seek similar services, the suit said.
“This ordinance is really just a duplicitous attempt to deeply limit or eliminate access to abortion in the Fort Wayne area,” said Suzanne Novak, senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights.
None of the county commissioners was available for comment Friday afternoon.
County health officials also declined to comment on the pending suit. But the department intends to continue accepting applications under the ordinance, spokesman John Silcox said.
Cathie Humbarger, executive director of Allen County Right to Life, was not surprised by the suit. She said there were threats of a lawsuit during public hearings before the ordinance was approved. Humbarger cheered the passage in April, saying it was a good step toward protecting women who suffer from “botched” abortions.
The group first brought the idea of such an ordinance to the commissioners in 2008. They drafted a law that would have targeted only abortion procedures.
The adopted version applies to a range of doctors and procedures.
It was drafted with the help of Dr. William Pond, with the Fort Wayne Medical Society, and Dr. Todd Rumsey, who sits on the county’s board of health.
County Health Commissioner Dr. Deborah McMahan supported the ordinance with all three saying it is needed.
County officials said at the time they believed they had adequately addressed privacy concerns in the ordinance.
Commissioner Nelson Peters said previously that he hoped the ordinance would spur the state to adopt a similar measure.
Journal Gazette reporters Niki Kelly and Jeff Wiehe contributed to this story.
