Not long ago, Republicans in the Missouri Legislature were citing the need to protect patient privacy as the justification for blocking a statewide prescription drug database to address opioid addiction. Pro-privacy Republicans are suddenly in short supply now that patients’ rights are under direct attack in the abortion debate.
The abortion issue, apparently, isn’t settled law anymore. But federal patient privacy laws are. The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA, should remain an impenetrable roadblock for women to protect themselves and their medical providers when they choose to get an abortion — especially now that some state legislatures are weighing whether to prosecute abortions as homicides.
A Texas law that took effect last year allows bounty hunters to track women who have had an abortion and sue their doctors or anyone else who assisted the woman. The law apparently has yet to be tested, probably because it lacks a mechanism for affirming that an abortion happened without violating the woman’s right to full privacy regarding her medical records. That’s federal law, and it cannot be superseded by state law.
