Senator Murray Statement on Biden Admin Strengthening Federal Privacy Protections for Patients Seeking Abortion Care
Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), issued the following statement on the Biden administration's plans to update key federal health privacy protections under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to explicitly protect patients who access abortion care--including by traveling across state lines to get care--and to protect providers and family members who help patients get the care they need.
"This is a critical step to help patients across our country get the reproductive care they need with the knowledge that their privacy will be protected. I pushed the Biden administration to update existing HIPAA regulations to strengthen our nation's health privacy protections as Republicans go after patients and providers in the wake of the Dobbs decision, and I am glad the administration is moving ahead with new protections to do just that.
"Right now, Republicans are threatening absolutely everyone--patients, their loved ones, doctors, pharmacists, and others--with serious legal consequences for seeking or helping patients get the legal abortion care they need. We've seen Republicans investigate patients for seeking reproductive care--and threaten women, doctors, neighbors, and friends with time behind bars for simply helping them get that care. Just last week, Idaho signed a law criminalizing the act of so much as helping minors travel across state lines to get legal abortion care elsewhere--so these protections could not be more important.
"The bottom line is: no patient should have to fear their personal health care decisions could be used against them, and no doctor should have to fear threats and investigations for providing legal care to their patients. This proposed rule will provide much-needed peace of mind for patients and providers alike, and I will be looking to ensure these updated regulations provide the strongest possible protections."
In September, Senator Murray led 29 of her Senate colleagues in calling on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to safeguard the privacy of patients seeking reproductive health care by strengthening federal privacy protections under HIPAA. In the letter, Senator Murray called on HHS to update its HIPAA Privacy Rule for patients to restrict providers from sharing patients' reproductive health information without their explicit consent, bolster enforcement of the protections, and ensure patients understand their rights.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Senator Murray has led the fight in Congress to fight back and protect Americans' fundamental rights. At a hearing she chaired right in the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs decision, Senator Murray warned of the chaos, confusion, and harm the decision and Republicans' extreme policies would cause. In the wake of the decision, Senator Murray pushed the administration to do everything in its power to protect patients and providers--and introduced and fought to pass commonsense legislation to protect the right to contraception, protect every American's right to travel for abortion care, protect doctors' right to provide legal abortion care, expand our national family planning program, protect the right to build a family through assisted reproductive technology, and more. She led her colleagues at the very outset of this Congress to make crystal clear that Senate Democrats are continuing to fight to protect every American's reproductive rights and will be a firewall against House Republicans' continued attacks on our rights--and that's exactly what she's doing now. Senator Murray recently helped lead 48 of her colleagues in reintroducing the Women's Health Protection Act to put an end to the chaos Republicans have caused and restore Roe nationwide.
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