I am not posting this to get into the whole abortion debate, so please don't go there.
This is about privacy issues.
I was just surprised yet again to the lengths this administration would go despite Doctor - Patient confidentiality. "Invasion of privacy" seems to be very subjective these days. This seems to be a strech to be included in the Patriot Act coverage, seems more like an agenda to me.
From today's Chicago Sun-Times.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-abort11.html
Judge won't let Ashcroft have hospital's abortion records
BY CHRIS HACK AND ALICE HOHL
A federal judge in Chicago has struck a blow to the Bush administration's fight to defend the constitutionality of a ban on a late-term procedure that anti-abortion activists call partial-birth abortions.
U.S. Chief District Judge Charles P. Kocoras blocked a move by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to obtain medical records from Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where dozens of the controversial procedures have been performed in the past two years.
The late-term abortions were performed by Dr. Cassing Hammond, an obstetrician-gynecologist who is part of a New York lawsuit challenging the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. The plaintiffs are a group of doctors as well as abortion-rights advocacy groups. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Justice Department lawyers subpoenaed the medical records of 40 patients to see if they contradicted Hammond's claims that the abortions were necessary to protect the mothers' health.
Kocoras ruled that strict Illinois medical privacy laws meant the patients' records couldn't be released.
"By demanding the rationale behind the abortions he performed, the subpoena would thereby require Northwestern to disclose medical history information of Dr. Hammond's patients," Kocoras wrote in a Feb. 5 opinion, noting that, while Hammond practices at Northwestern, he is not a hospital employee.
More importantly, Kocoras wrote, the Northwestern patients aren't involved in the lawsuit -- their doctor and the federal government are.
"While Illinois does not differentiate between the types of medical information that is subject to protection, it is only reasonable that the privilege should not be diluted in a case involving procedures as sensitive and personal as late-term abortions," Kocoras wrote. "American history discloses that the abortion decision is one of the most controversial decisions in modern life.
"An emotionally charged decision will be rendered more so if the confidential medical records are released to the public . . . for use in public litigation in which the patient is not even a party."
The patient records weren't subpoenaed to prove whether illegal procedures were being conducted at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The ban passed Congress in November 2003. The anonymous patients to whom Hammond referred in court papers underwent treatment before that time.
