It’s been fashionable for a long time to decry the reasoning behind Roe v. Wade as insufficiently focused on women’s equality and too much focused on privacy. After all, the Supreme Court justified denying public funding for poor women’s abortions partly based on the fact that abortion is, from Roe, a private matter, so public funding isn’t required.
However, when stories appear like this one about the Attorney General of Kansas probably leaking information about abortion patients to Bill O’Reilly who then broadcast information about the patients’ abortions on his show, we are reminded why grounding abortion rights in privacy is still absolutely essential to women’s rights and women’s health.
–David S. Cohen
Helloooooo, HIPAA! Or am I mistaken: HIPAA doesn’t apply here?
I think you might be mistaken. HIPAA allows the government to obtain medical records with a subpoena or court order in a number of circumstances.
Here are some links that address that issue from diiferent perspectives:
http://idtrail.org/content/view/205/42/
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/39/7/1-a
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/ppsaz/HIPAA-Privacy-Policy.htm
Whoops, I think I misunderstood your comment. HIPAA seems to allow the government to collect the information at issue, but I now realize you are probably suggesting HIPAA may preclude it being passed on to Bill O’Reilly. Possibly the answer to that is here: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/
It’s a good question.
HIPAA should be the least of the Attorney General’s concerns. If the leaks came from his office, he should be worried about the constitution and the court order allowing the AG to obtain the records in the first place.