Uh Oh -- US Justice Dept is after some hospitals' abortion records

Justice Dept. Seeks Hospitals' Records of Some Abortions
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

Published: February 12, 2004

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 — The Justice Department is demanding that at least six hospitals in New York City, Philadelphia and elsewhere turn over hundreds of patient medical records on certain abortions performed there.

Lawyers for the department say they need the records to defend a new law that prohibits what opponents call partial-birth abortions. A group of doctors at hospitals nationwide have challenged the law, enacted last November, arguing that it bars them from performing medically needed abortions.

The department wants to examine the medical histories for what could amount to dozens of the doctors' patients in the last three years to determine, in part, whether the procedure, known medically as intact dilation and extraction, was in fact medically necessary, government lawyers said.

[...]

Sheila M. Gowan, a Justice Department lawyer, told Judge Casey that the demand for the records was intended in part to find out whether the doctors now suing the government had actually performed procedures prohibited under the new law, and whether the procedures were medically necessary "or if it was just the doctor's preference to perform the procedure."

[...]

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."

[...]

Advocates for abortion rights said they were particularly troubled by the subpoenas because of Attorney General John Ashcroft's history as an outspoken opponent of abortion in his days in the Senate.

"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."

Uhm...