Biden administration finalizes abortion privacy protections

WASHINGTON — Biden officials are still pressing to shore up abortion protections amid an onslaught of legal challenges, one of which is slated for Supreme Court arguments this week.

The Department of Health and Human Services on Monday released a final rule that would put abortion services under the same federal privacy protections as other health care data covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. The rule effectively allows providers to deny access to health care data that could be used to prosecute people in abortion-restrictive states.

The regulation is designed to help patients and doctors in abortion-restrictive states protect information, specifically about out-of-state travel to receive care. More than 90,000 people traveled across state lines for abortion care in the first half of 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Financial aid for travel also helped grassroots organizations’ spending triple during that time.

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