The state of Oklahoma plans to implement a new law on Nov. 1 that will require that specific details of abortions performed in state will be posted on a public website, according to Amanda Terkel of ThinkProgress.
While the law does not post the names of women who have had abortions performed, it does reveal personal information which could easily identify woman from small communities. A number of civil liberties organizations, including the Center for Reproductive Rights, plan to argue that the new law is unconstitutional under Oklahoma law as it covers more than one subject. That approach previously helped overturn a state law requiring women seeking abortions to have an ultrasound.
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What is particularly insidious about the Oklahoma law is that it likely is is unconstitutional under federal law, although the wingnut Roberts Court is no friend of individual civil liberties. The law also seems to be in direct conflict with HIPAA(Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). Specifically the Oklahoma law seems to violate the Privacy Rule of HIPAA which states:
The Privacy Rule, which took effect on April 14, 2003, regulates the use and disclosure of certain information held by "covered entities" (generally, health care clearinghouses, employer sponsored health plans, health insurers, and medical service providers that engage in certain transactions.) It establishes regulations for the use and disclosure of Protected Health Information (PHI). PHI is any information held by a covered entity which concerns health status, provision of health care, or payment for health care that can be linked to an individual.This is interpreted rather broadly and includes any part of an individual's medical record or payment history.
Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma spokeswoman Keri Parks noted that the law is designed to intimidate women who might have abortions. Parks cited the first eight questions on the disclosure form as evidence:
- Date of abortion
- County in which abortion performed
- Age of mother
- Marital status of mother
(married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married)
- Race of mother
- Years of education of mother
(specify highest year completed)
- State or foreign country of residence of mother
- Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother
Live Births
Miscarriages
Induced Abortions
Officials from the Center for Reproductive Rights labeled the Oklahoma law both an end run around the duties of the legislature as well as a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars.
T
he Oklahoma Constitution requires that laws address only one subject at a time, but the new measure covers four distinct subjects, including redefining a number of abortion-related terms used in the Oklahoma code; banning sex-selective abortion; requiring doctors who perform abortions or treat patients who have had abortions to report extensive patient information to the state health department; and creating new responsibilities for the State Health Department, the State Board of Medical Licensure and Supervision, and the State Board of Osteopathic Examiners relating to gathering and analyzing abortion data and enforcing abortion restrictions. According to the legislature's own estimates, implementing the new reporting requirements will cost the state $281,285 during the first year and $256,285 each subsequent year.
The 2009 law is part of a seemingly never-ending act by Oklahoma legislature to restrict abortion by bundling laws into a single bill. Only last month, a state district court reversed a 2008 law that included, among other abortion restrictions, the most extreme ultrasound requirement in the country and a requirement that would have limited the availability of abortions performed with the medication RU-486. The court in that case ruled that the statute included too many disparate topics and therefore violated the state constitution.
"Anti-choice forces will stop at nothing to prevent women from having access to abortion services, including resorting to a cheap legislative trick that's quite clearly unconstitutional," said Jennifer Mondino, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights. "Rather than considering each item alone, as the Oklahoma Constitution requires, the legislature has made last year's error all over again. These ‘bundled abortion restrictions' have nothing to do with protecting the people of Oklahoma and everything to do with lawmakers who have political agendas trying to make it harder for women to get abortions and harder for doctors to provide them."
The CRR is a party to a lawsuit seeking to enjoin the state from enacting this law. In September, a former state representative, Wanda Stapleton, and resident Lora Joyce Davis, sued the state.
Lynn Harris of the Broadsheet called the stated rationale for the law is a canard:
The law's supporters claim they want this information to be made public so it can be used for "academic research," but according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, its collection method makes it useless for that purpose. (If a woman sees more than one doctor concerning her abortion -- primary care and abortion provider, say -- the data, collected each visit, will appear to represent more than one patient.)
The law reeks of Republican Big Brotherism. It makes a mockery of HIPAA which is supposed to protect the privacy of your medical records AND it contains personal information that may be used in the future to deny health insurance to some woman.
Additionally, I see this as blatantly unconstitutional since it seeks to treat a woman's — specifically any woman of reproductive age — private medical records for a legal (and I can't emphasis this enough) procedure differently from other women or men in general.
Even scarier is the fact that women who must undergo medically necessary abortions or who miscarry or deliver stillborn babies may end up in the Oklahoma data base. While it is true that it might be possible to differentiate data-wise between women who choose to have elective abortions versus the previously mentioned categories, that is besides the point. Virtually all of those women in the second group wanted to carry the fetus to term but had complications. In essence, the Talbangelists seek to traumatize these women a second time – as if losing one's baby wasn't a bad enough experience. I guess that's why they call it Republican family values.
So, with any luck, the CRR, and the women and families of Oklahoma, should prevail in court again. That doesn't mean, however, that we should toss these wild salvos in the buncha-crazies bin of reproductive rights history. While the technique of bundling abortion restrictions together is not unique -- it's a way of passing harder-core laws by packaging them with more popular laws that a lawmaker doesn't want to oppose on record -- the Sooner State, of late, has been particularly creative. Call it the Oklahoma gambit: "Oklahoma serves as a sort of test case for new and extreme anti-choice legislation, and others in the anti-choice movement will watch what happens in that state to see if some strategy is successful," says Mondino. No matter what, these guys'll be back again, sowing stigma and straw men, wasting time and money -- and their allies will be watching, and learning. So should we.
UPDATE: A special thanks to Vitabrevis for posting this link which has more detailed description of the Ok. law. You can also check out her earlier story here.
I learned that doctors risk jail time and loss of their license for failing to conform to this law, but I also believe that applies w/ HIPAA as well.
The Oklahoma law, H.B. 1595, also changed definitions of abortion terms, used terms already thrown out by a court and barred certain procedures for the first time, according to the filing.
H.B. 1595 changed several statutory definitions, banned abortions sought "solely on account of the sex of the unborn child," imposed new reporting requirements on physicians who administer abortions or treat patients for complications of abortions, and created new, and expensive, responsibilities, including enforcement of state laws on abortions and gathering and reporting of statistics on abortions, state agencies and medical boards.
In addition the state redefined the terms unemancipated minor and performing an abortion.
A group called "Pro-Choice of Oklahoma" claims that the reporting requirements of HB 1595 are so extensive that the reports could reveal the names of physicians and patients who perform or receive abortions in small towns.
That in particular is very troubling. Given the murders of doctors Tiller at his church and Slepien who was shot dead by a sniper's bullet while he was heating soup on his stove, it doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind will blow in wingnuttia. And that means that another doctor will probably be murdered, and the conservatives and Faux Noise while blame it on Nancy Pelosi and teh stewpid librul meedeeyah.
UPDATE 2: Recommended list. Sweet.
Thank you to everyone who not only took the time to read this but also commented as well. I for one, really wished I knew about this law when it was being debated. IMO certain groups dropped the ball here. I went to the Ok. ACLU website and they didn't even have anything on it although there was a link to the Center for Reproductive Rights. However, as I stated, by mentioning HIPAA, this is more than an issue limited to reproductive rights. This is a privacy issue – just as one commenter noted, was Roe. I would also add that IMO this law treats abortion different from other just as legal medical procedures as well as violates the equal protection clause of our constitution.