Tucson, Arizona Tuesday, 29 April 2003
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for health authorities in South Carolina to collect names, addresses and other information about women seeking abortions, a power doctors say violates a fundamental duty to protect patient privacy.
The high court rejected a challenge to the state's plan to catalog medical records from clinics and abortion doctors. The court's action, taken without comment, ends a lengthy legal challenge that had kept the law on hold.
South Carolina is the only state whose law allows regulators to see, copy and store abortion patients' medical records without stiff requirements that the information be kept confidential, lawyers representing the clinic and outside medical organizations said.
"For every individual, having your private medical records kept confidential is important. In the abortion context, it's even more important," said Bonnie Scott Jones, a lawyer for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represented a Greenville, S.C., abortion clinic. "Women are subjected to harassment, violence, if their abortion decision is disclosed."
South Carolina wants abortion clinics to open all files, including patient medical records, if state investigators ask to see them. Supporters say the new regulations will improve state oversight of abortion providers and are part of ordinary state record keeping.
Trey Walker, spokesman for the South Carolina Attorney General's Office, said he was pleased the legal challenges were over.
"The state regulations are reasonable health and safety measures that do not infringe on anyone's constitutional rights," he said.
Patient medical records ordinarily are a private matter, although there are exceptions. Doctors, hospitals and insurers can share information among themselves, and police or other authorities can seek records in criminal investigations, public health emergencies or, for example, when child abuse is suspected.
The Supreme Court case arose from a 1995 law that imposed new, heavier regulations on abortion providers in South Carolina. The state said the changes would improve standards at abortion clinics and make the procedure safer. Clinics and doctors contended the regulations were really intended to hurt providers financially or force them out of business.
In another case Monday, the Supreme Court refused to salvage Kentucky's plan to display the Ten Commandments on a granite monument near the state Capitol.
The state Legislature ordered the display in 2000, but the monument has never gone up.