Indiana: Planned Parenthood Fights AG's Attempt to Obtain Records
Planned Parenthood of Indiana sued the state last week, filing both temporary and permanent injunctions against Attorney General Steve Carter, who has demanded the medical records of 73 low-income Planned Parenthood patients under the age of 14. Carter has already obtained the records of eight such minors using the state’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit in order to investigate whether the state’s Planned Parenthood clinics are reporting instances of child rape or molestation as they are required to do, according to the Associated Press. Indiana’s law defines sex with a child under the age of 14 as child molestation, regardless of the partner’s age. The Courier Press reports that none of the records sought involve abortions.
Planned Parenthood of Indiana contends that the state investigators have not provided an explanation for the “sweeping scope” of the request for medical records. "This is a clear-cut case of abuse of power. Instead of protecting medical privacy rights, the attorney general is selling them out to his fishing expedition," Planned Parenthood of Indiana CEO Betty Cockrum said. "We take our patients' privacy very seriously."
Because federal health privacy laws do not apply to investigations of Medicaid fraud or abuse, Planned Parenthood risks losing Medicaid funding if they do not turn over the records of their patients, the Indianapolis Star reports.
Similarly, Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline has been on a mission since last fall to obtain the unedited medical records of 90 women and girls who sought late-term abortions in 2003, claiming that he needs these records in order to prosecute child rape. However, Kline has also subpoenaed the records of women over the age of 16, which is the age of legal consent in the state. Attorneys for the two clinics targeted by Kline have told the Kansas Supreme Court that “the logical and natural progression of this action could well be a knock on the door of a woman who exercised her constitutional right to privacy, by special agents of the attorney general who seek to inquire into her personal, medical, sexual or legal history.”
In 2004, then US Attorney General John Ashcroft sought abortion records from hospitals and Planned Parenthood clinics in order to prosecute those who had violated the abortion procedures ban passed by Congress in 2003. Several federal judges ruled against Ashcroft’s action, and the abortion procedures ban has since been ruled unconstitutional three times.
5/22/2013 Immigration Reform Bill Advances In Senate - Last night, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a sweeping immigration reform bill in a bipartisan vote of 13 to 5. . . .
5/22/2013 Afghan Women Arrested for 'Moral Crimes' Increases 50% - A new report by the Human Rights Watch shows that in the past 18 months the number of women in Afghanistan incarcerated for 'moral crimes' has increased from 400 to 600, a 50% growth.
Many of the women imprisoned for moral crimes were arrested running away from forced or abusive marriages and families, even though there is no law against leaving. . . .
5/22/2013 Army Commander Suspended for Adultery Amid Wave of Sexual Assaults - On Tuesday, Brigadier General Bryan T Roberts was suspended from his position as commander of the Fort Jackson, South Carolina training camp which trains approximately 60% of incoming female recruits pending an investigation into allegations of adultery.
Roberts was suspended following allegations of "adultery and a physical altercation." Colonel Christian Kubik, an Army spokesperson for the Training and Doctrine Command, told reporters "We don't have any evidence of any sexual assault. . . .
