The Biden administration on Monday announced new rules intended to protect the privacy of patients seeking abortions, and the health workers who may have provided them, from Republican prosecutors who have threatened to crack down on the procedure.
The rules strengthen a nearly 30-year-old health privacy law — known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA — to offer more robust legal protections to those who obtain or provide reproductive health care in a state where it is legal to do so. The final policy prohibits physicians, insurers and other health-care organizations from disclosing health information to state officials for the purposes of conducting an investigation, filing a lawsuit or prosecuting a patient or provider. It covers women who cross state lines to legally terminate a pregnancy and those who qualify for an exception to their state’s abortion ban, such as in cases of rape, incest or a medical emergency.
