A letter, written by several organizations who monitor public policy, was sent to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services secretary challenging the proposed HIPAA rules as "arbitrary and capricious."
They said the administration exploited all aspects of federal power, including HIPAA, likening it to a weapon, the letter said. The plea urged a reconsideration to safeguard HIPAA's integrity.
"As part of its campaign of massive resistance to the Dobbs decision, the Biden administration has weaponized every lever of the federal government, including HIPAA," Roger Severino, Heritage Foundation vice president of domestic policy and former director of the HHS Office of Civil Rights, said, according to a June 21 news release. "HHS bureaucrats are threatening pro-life professionals and medical providers with penalties and jail time with a rule so vague and confusing as to call into question its constitutionality."
The letter was written by Benjamin Rioja Paris, Heritage Foundation policy analyst of regulatory policy at the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, and Jonathan Abbamonte, senior research associate in the Center for Data Analysis. The letter was sent to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.
The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking prohibits the use or disclosure of protected health information for specific purposes related to reproductive health care, according to the Federal Register. These purposes include conducting investigations or proceedings related to seeking, obtaining, providing or facilitating reproductive health care that is lawful under the relevant circumstances.
Additionally, the notice prohibits the identification of individuals for the purpose of initiating such investigations or proceedings, the Federal Register reported..
"This rule could impede lawful investigations not only of illegal abortions but also rape, incest, sex trafficking, domestic violence, abuse and neglect if it pertains to the provision of abortion and any other 'reproductive health care,'" Severino said in the release. "HHS is attempting to flip the law on its head by not only shielding evidence of abortion-related crimes but by treating cooperators with law enforcement as criminals.
"Most offensive of all, HHS literally redefines 'person' under HIPAA to exclude unborn human beings from the protection of the law," Severino added, according to the release. "Doctors won't be able to work with authorities to help save unborn children from threats to their lives or health because the rule would deem them as 'unpersons.'"
The Department proposes to clarify the definition of "natural person" in a manner consistent with 1 U.S.C. 8, which states the words "person," "human being," "child," and "individual" shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development, the U.S. Code reported.
In so doing, the department would make clear all terms included within the definition of "natural person," such as "individual," which refers to a "person" who is the subject of PHI under the HIPAA Rules, is limited to the confines of the term "person," the Federal Register reported. The department would also make clear that "natural person," as used in the definition of "person" under the HIPAA Rules, is limited to that definition.
