PHOENIX (CN) — Arizonans concerned about the future of the state's reproductive rights gathered inside a central Phoenix Planned Parenthood Tuesday morning to hear updates on the Biden administration’s efforts to protect the privacy of Americans seeking reproductive care in the wake of recent court rulings that have left abortion rights up in the air.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Monday announced an addition to HIPAA that prohibits health care providers from sharing personal health information pertaining to lawful reproductive care with bodies seeking to investigate or impose liability on those who seek to obtain or provide said care.
In Phoenix, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, joined by local care providers, explained the change to the press Tuesday morning.
“While there are many things to fear, and there are many reasons to be confused, your privacy rights should not be one of them,” Becerra said.
Just two weeks after Arizona’s Supreme Court revived a near-total abortion ban — a law dating back to the Civil War that lacks exceptions for victims of rape or incest — women and physicians alike in the Grand Canyon State and across the nation have operated under confusion and fear of legal recourse.
Melanie Fontes Rainer, director of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights, said patients are too scared to discuss their options with physicians out of fear that they might be investigated by state agencies using their medical records.
“No one should live in fear that their conversations with their doctors or that their medical claims data might be used to track or target them for seeking lawful reproductive health care,” Fontes Rainer said.
Becerra said Health and Human Services “stepped up” to fight for womens’ privacy.
He said the new rule will require health care providers to sign an attestation that they won’t release patient information in response to an investigation into legal services, and to update their own notices of privacy practices so patients know what to expect.
“No one has the right to share your personal, private, confidential, very important medical information without permission through law,” he said.
Current law doesn’t require such disclosures to investigative agencies, but allows them under certain circumstances. The new rule strengthens protections by making it clear to both providers and investigators what is and isn’t required to be shared, Fontes Rainer explained.
Becerra’s visit marked the third time the Biden-Harris administration has discussed reproductive health care in Arizona this year.
Vice President Kamala Harris visited Phoenix in March to campaign for greater access to abortions, calling out “political extremists” who seek to punish doctors for providing abortions and contraceptive care.
There, Harris called for national protection of in vitro fertilization — the fertilization of eggs in a lab setting — following an Alabama Supreme Court decision that ruled frozen fertilized eggs are living human beings.
As reproductive health care remains threatened across the country, it’s unclear whether states will regulate access to the Opill, the new over-the-counter birth control pill that doesn’t require a prescription. In Arizona, teens can receive birth control without parental consent, and those 12 or younger can do so with a parent’s permission. But anyone under 18 needs parental permission or a written order from a state judge to receive an abortion.
Right now, no laws govern access to the Opill, which hit pharmacy shelves in the first week of May.
In addition to supporting Planned Parenthood and other health care providers, Becerra said his office plans to take the abortion issue back to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, Democrats in both chambers of the Arizona Legislature are working on repealing the result of its own Supreme Court’s recent decision, but efforts are slow moving. As lawmakers are meeting only once weekly until the legislative session ends, it’s unclear whether there’s enough time to change the law this year. Lawmakers will convene again Wednesday, where further repeal attempts are expected to be made.
If successful, the repeal wouldn't take effect until 90 days after the legislative session ends, which may be a while from Tuesday, as lawmakers haven’t yet agreed on a budget for next year. The ban itself is set to take effect on June 8, meaning there will at least be some overlap in which abortions are illegal, even if Democrats succeed.
But Governor Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes, both Democrats, have already vowed not to prosecute physicians, pointing to an executive order Hobbs issued last year that gives Mayes full authority over all abortion-related prosecutions.
If they can’t repeal the ban, Arizona Democrats are looking toward a voter initiative that would enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution and supersede the 1864 ban. That initiative has already received more than 500,000 signatures.
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