By Daniel Wiessner
(Reuters) -A federal judge on Wednesday struck down a rule adopted by the administration of former President Joe Biden that strengthened privacy protections for women seeking abortions and patients who receive gender transition treatments.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas, said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services exceeded its powers and unlawfully limited states’ ability to enforce their public health laws when it adopted the rule last year.
The rule prohibits healthcare providers and insurers from giving information about a legal abortion to state law enforcement authorities who are seeking to punish someone in connection with that abortion.
“HHS lacked clear delegated authority to fashion special protections for medical information produced by politically favored medical procedures,” wrote Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, a Republican, during his first term.
Kacsmaryk in December had blocked HHS from enforcing the rule against a Texas doctor who had brought the lawsuit, Carmen Purl, pending the outcome of the case. Wednesday’s decision blocks the rule nationwide.
HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Purl is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group. Matt Bowman, senior counsel with the group, praised the decision in a statement, saying the 2024 rule “would have weaponized laws about privacy that have nothing to do with abortion or gender identity.”
The Biden administration issued the rule as part of its pledge to support access to reproductive healthcare after the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that made access to abortion a constitutional right nationwide.
It came in response to efforts by authorities in some Republican-led states that ban abortion, including Texas, to restrict out-of-state travel for abortion.
Texas has filed a separate lawsuit challenging the rule, which is pending in federal court in Lubbock, Texas. HHS in a court filing last month said agency leadership appointed by Trump is evaluating its position in this case.
Biden, a Democrat, said in announcing the rule that no one should have their medical records “used against them, their doctor, or their loved one just because they sought or received lawful reproductive health care.”
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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