Keeping a person’s health information confidential is vital. As a pediatrician, I am ethically and legally bound to protect the medical information of my young patients, and I take that duty very seriously. My patients and their parents count on it.
A Florida school district recently made headlines over concerns that teenage athletes were being asked to submit sensitive health information prior to scholastic sports participation. Athletes in this district are required to fill out a health questionnaire online and the responses are digitally stored by a private company. Parents voiced alarm about questions that asked athletes about their menstrual periods.
While the five questions about menstrual history were optional, families found them particularly concerning given the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which deprives Americans of abortion rights that were previously recognized as guaranteed by the Constitution. Florida has an abortion law in place that bans the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Anyone who “willfully performs, or actively participates in, a termination of pregnancy” is subject to felony charges.
