Biden HHS proposal would shield sex crimes, coerced abortions, child sterilization: critics
"You can't suddenly redefine human beings out of existence in order to further abortion politics," says Trump health privacy regulator Roger Severino.
The Biden administration is pursuing the same type of "massive resistance" threatened by an earlier Democrat to frustrate school desegregation, but this time to protect abortion and potentially sterilizing treatments for gender-confused youth, according to a Trump administration official who enforced the health privacy regulations under review.
The Department of Health and Human Services received more than 11,000 comments on its notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and "protected health information" before it closed Friday, only 65 of which are currently accessible to the public.
The proposed rulemaking, if approved, would change HIPAA's definitions of "person" to exclude human beings before birth, "reproductive health care" to "broadly" apply to the reproductive system, and "public health" to exclude use and disclosure of PHI for investigations or proceedings related to reproductive healthcare.
The NPRM cites the 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs, which returned abortion regulation to the states, as its primary motivation. While it does not mention so-called gender affirming care, the proposal appears broad enough to encompass puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and genital removal for transgender and nonbinary patients.
It is likely to "inhibit states’ ability to investigate or enforce abortion laws or laws prohibiting minors from accessing gender transition drugs and surgeries," according to an analysis by Ethics and Public Policy Center fellow Rachel Morrison.
Continues…
https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/biden-hhs-proposal-would-shield-sex-crimes-coerced-abortions-child