The court found the Department of Health and Human Services lacked authority to adopt the rule.
A federal judge on Wednesday struck down a Biden-era rule that prevented abortion records from being accessed for investigations, finding the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the former administration exceeded its powers in adopting it.
The rule was issued through the Office for Civil Rights at HHS in 2024 based on its authority to protect patient privacy via the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).
It banned health care providers from disclosing to state law enforcement authorities a patient’s protected health information regarding reproductive health care for investigations of any kind.
The rule only applied to situations where the care was provided under lawful circumstances, and not in states where the procedure was banned.
Violators faced criminal penalties including fines and prison time under the rule.
District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas, said that in adopting the rule, HHS exceeded its powers and unlawfully limited states’ ability to enforce their public health laws.
“In sum, HIPAA confers authority to promulgate regulations protecting ‘individually identifiable health information.’ But it confers no authority to distinguish between types of health information to accomplish political ends like protecting access to abortion and gender-transition procedures,” Kacsmaryk wrote.
“Thus, HHS lacks the authority to issue regulations that enact heightened protections for information about politically favored procedures.”
In a statement announcing the adoption of the rule in April 2022, President Joe Biden had said: “No one should have their medical records used against them, their doctor, or their loved one just because they sought or received lawful reproductive health care.”
Biden cited the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which had protected abortion nationwide based on the 14th Amendment’s due process clause, and said that “access to reproductive health care is under attack.”
“By safeguarding patient information, the new rule will help health care providers give complete and accurate information to patients and improve the quality of health care,” Biden said at the time.
