No Privacy for Women Who Have Abortions?

Hospitals in Philadelphia and New York City have been asked by the Justice Department to turn over records on women who have had abortions - a request that hospitals are balking at because of the principle of doctor/patient confidentiality and medical privacy. Justice Department lawyers want the records in order to defend a law that bans partial-birth abortions because they want to be able to prove that the procedure isn't medically necessary - and they say that the women involved have no right to privacy in this matter anyway.

The New York Times reports:

A federal judge in Manhattan last week allowed the subpoenas to go forward and threatened to impose penalties, and perhaps even lift a temporary ban he had imposed on the government's new abortion restrictions, if the records were not turned over. ... "I will not let the doctors hide behind the shield of the hospital," Judge Casey said, according to a transcript of the hearing. "Is that clear? I am fed up with stalls and delays."

Citing federal case law, the department said in a brief that "there is no federal common law" protecting physician-patient privilege. In light of "modern medical practice" and the growth of third-party insurers, it said, "individuals no longer possess a reasonable expectation that their histories will remain completely confidential."

"This notion of John Ashcroft poring over medical records in a fairly unprecedented type of fishing expedition is exactly the type of privacy invasion that worries people," said David Seldin, a spokesman for Naral Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights organization. "The government just shouldn't be involving itself in private medical decisions and second-guessing doctors' ability to advise their patients properly."

Consider this fair warning: you should have no expectation that anything you do for your health in consultation with your doctor should remain privileged or private, especially if the government wants to try and ban whatever it is that you are doing (or even if they want to ban something similar to what you are doing). The government's position is that they can have the records and use them for their own purposes.

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