Justice Dept. subpoenas Planned Parenthood abortion records

If that's the motivation, then they can do it through less intrusive means, such as checking employment records and the clinics' accounts receivable records. Patient records shouldn't come into this at all.

I am personally against the abortion unless the health of the mother is in danger.

Having said that I find it worrisome that the government is going through medical records. They always have an excuse for their invasion of our privacies, but to me it just seems that they are getting more or and more like communists or states of dictatorships.

Justice Dept. Bid for Abortion Files Rejected
Justice Dept. Bid for Abortion Files Rejected
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 6, 2004; Page A11

A federal judge in San Francisco yesterday rejected the Justice Department's attempt to obtain abortion records from Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a ruling likely to halt demands for as many as 1,000 patient files from clinics around the country, including the Washington area, according to Justice officials and the family-planning group.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton is a legal setback for the department, which is trying to obtain edited records of patients as it defends the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, approved last year. Planned Parenthood and other organizations have filed lawsuits to overturn the statute on the grounds that it is unconstitutional.

In the Planned Parenthood lawsuit and in another brought in New York by the National Abortion Federation, Justice Department prosecutors have argued that they need the patient records to determine the veracity of claims by physicians that the late-term abortion procedure covered by the law is sometimes medically necessary.

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and agency officials have stressed that the records would be stripped of names, Social Security numbers and other personal information before they are turned over to the government.

But lawyers for Planned Parenthood and other plaintiffs contend that the request would still result in the disclosure of data protected by privacy laws, and that the files would provide little, if any, useful information to the government.

Hamilton ruled from the bench that the files are not relevant or necessary for a trial, which is scheduled to begin on March 29, according to Justice Department and Planned Parenthood officials.

"Today the forces of freedom beat back an unprecedented attempt by the administration to invade one of the most precious rights we have: the right to medical privacy," Gloria Feldt, Planned Parenthood's president, said in a statement.

Justice Department spokeswoman Monica Goodling said the government is "disappointed in the ruling, particularly because we made the request in a way that protected patient privacy."

"We're going to review the ruling, and we are obviously going to continue to vigorously defend the ban on partial-birth abortion," she said.

The Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, approved by Congress and signed by President Bush last fall, outlaws a type of late-term procedure known as intact dilation and extraction, in which the fetus is partially delivered before the skull is punctured.

Roger Evans, senior litigation and public policy director at Planned Parenthood, said the Justice Department's subpoenas in the San Francisco case would apply to about 1,000 abortion cases over the past year, including many second-term procedures that are not covered by the new law.

The government sought the records in two ways: through a motion filed in Hamilton's court and through subpoenas issued in other courts that have jurisdiction over six Planned Parenthood affiliates. Although Hamilton's ruling does not technically cover those subpoenas, it makes their enforcement unlikely, Evans said. "I would expect them to drop it," he said. "If they pursue the subpoenas, it's either folly or harassment or both."

Any appeal would have to be pursued quickly because of the approaching trial. It would have to be filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, generally considered the most liberal appellate court.

Goodling declined to comment on the Justice Department's plans.

In the New York case, a group of five medical centers has resisted similar demands for patient records, despite a ruling from the primary judge in that case that allows the subpoenas to proceed. But one of the medical centers in that case, Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, won an injunction blocking the Justice Department from obtaining the records on privacy grounds. Other medical centers are awaiting court decisions.