Ian Lopez reports:
A Texas judge’s striking down of abortion protections threatens broader federal health privacy rights and the government’s ability to regulate them, attorneys warn.
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee and go-to jurist for conservative litigants, vacated a Biden administration rule that sought to strengthen Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act protections involving abortion records. The rule prohibited medical providers from sharing reproductive health information for investigations into people seeking care in states where the services were legal.
In his decision, Kacsmaryk, of the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, leaned on the major questions doctrine, a legal principle that federal agencies need a green light from Congress to tackle economically and politically significant issues.
Read more at Bloomberg Law.