The White House on Wednesday proposed a new federal rule that would limit how state and law enforcement officials collect medical records if they investigate women who leave their home states for seek abortion elsewhere.
The proposal, spurred by a series of attacks on access to abortion nationwide, follows a ruling by a federal judge on Friday that threatened to phase out the most commonly used abortion pill. , mifepristone, off the market.
The White House’s proposed rule would ban health care organizations from sharing personal medical records with the administration for investigations related to reproductive care in states where women have legal abortions. Although medical records are protected by federal privacy laws, medical providers and insurance companies may be required to turn over medical records upon court order.
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Melanie Fontes Rainer, director of the civil rights office at the US Department of Health and Human Services, which proposed the rule change, said doctors around the country have expressed concern about protecting information medical information from law enforcement officials.
“We have had many conversations with service providers, major medical associations and patient advocates about what they are seeing in the real world and how the federal government can help in this regard. ensuring that medical records are kept private,” she said in a statement.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court quashed the constitutional right to abortion last year, some women living in several Southern and Midwestern states that largely ban abortion now have to travel hours to different clinics. another state to get a legal abortion.
Vice President Kamala Harris was scheduled to discuss the proposed rule at a meeting on Wednesday with President Joe Biden’s Cabinet, which includes Attorney General Merrick Garland and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, according to two senior White House officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview the meeting. The public can weigh in on the proposed rule for the next 60 days.
The Cabinet will also plan a strategy to deal with statewide abortion bans and Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s order to remove the abortion drug mifepristone from the market, which threatens to impede access to abortion. nationwide on Friday if another court does not intervene. The department appealed the ruling on Monday.
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For months, the White House has struggled to fight abortion restrictions that Republican-led states have put in place since the US Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to the medical procedure. in June of last year.
Many abortion clinics, some offering drug-only abortions, have moved to Democratic-leaning states, preserving some form of access for millions of women around the country. Now, the Biden administration is looking at a challenge to abortion access that could change the way women have abortions across the country.
Kacsmaryk’s decision will revoke Food and Drug Administration approval for mifepristone, one of two drugs used in what is considered the most effective and safest way to perform a medical abortion. medicine. There is no precedent for a lone judge to overturn FDA health decisions, and pharmaceutical executives said Monday they fear the ruling could jeopardize vaccine approval and other drugs.
A competition ruling by a federal judge in Spokane, Washington, issued the same day directed federal officials not to block access to the drug in at least 17 states where Democrats have sued to keep the availability of this medicine intact. The matter will likely be decided by the Supreme Court.
