FORT WAYNE – Fort Wayne’s only abortion doctor said he received a death threat on his unpublished home phone after he filed a lawsuit against the Fort Wayne-Allen County Department of Health.

It’s unclear whether Dr. George Klopfer believes the caller somehow received his home phone number from the health department, where he had to register under the terms of the new patient-safety ordinance. Klopfer did not respond to a request for comment left at his Fort Wayne clinic.

Klopfer, operator of Fort Wayne Women’s Health, sued the health department in May to challenge new regulations for doctors who don’t live in Allen County or surrounding counties or who don’t have admitting privileges at area hospitals. The ordinance requires those doctors to provide contact information to area emergency rooms and the local health department.

Klopfer and his attorneys have argued the ordinance would give health officials unlimited access to patient medical records, a violation of their constitutional right to privacy, as well as violate physicians’ right to privacy. The lawsuit also argues that the county’s ordinance is unconstitutionally vague and that it discriminates against certain classes of doctors and represents an undue burden on patients seeking an abortion. It asks a judge to stop the ordinance from taking effect.

This week, Klopfer and his attorneys filed additional material to support the privacy concerns, including a sworn statement from Klopfer, who said he is concerned he was forced to give his home address on the application he submitted.

“After this case was filed and was publicized I received a phone call from someone in the Fort Wayne area who had found my unlisted home phone number who indicated that if he was with me, as opposed to being on the phone, he would blow my brains out,” Klopfer said in an affidavit. “I have contacted the FBI about this threat.”

Even so, his statement said, he attempted to comply with the ordinance by paying the fee, which the lawsuit describes as “unreasonable” and “unexplained.”

The ordinance requires abortion doctors to designate another physician whose name would be given to the health department and all Allen County hospitals, emergency departments and urgent-care centers. In his statement, Klopfer said few physicians have the skill, experience and inclination to serve in that capacity, and he has been unable to find one.

“The one physician who I thought would be willing and able to be my physician designee, refused to do so when he learned that his designation would be so widely publicized,” he said.

Instead, Klopfer, who lives in Illinois, provided a cell phone number where he can be contacted 24/7, 365 days a year in an attempt to comply with the local ordinance.

Because of the pending litigation, health department administrator Mindy Waldron said she couldn’t comment, even in general terms, on how the department plans to protect physician and patient privacy.

A draft of the ordinance included with the lawsuit says any documents about patients or physicians could be disclosed to the public unless otherwise prohibited by law, although certain information must first be redacted. That information includes physicians’ home addresses, telephone and fax numbers, birth dates and ages and vehicle and license plate numbers.

But the physicians’ information may be disclosed to Allen County hospitals, emergency departments and urgent-care providers or other physicians and health care providers, the ordinance states.

Klopfer is being represented by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana and New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights who declined to comment on the documents filed this week.

The county commissioners last month appointed an attorney from the Alliance Defense Fund, a socially conservative league of attorneys that frequently takes up anti-abortion causes, to represent the county in the lawsuit.

aturner@jg.net