1. Date of abortion
2. County in which abortion performed
3. Age of mother
4. Marital status of mother
(married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married)
5. Race of mother
6. Years of education of mother
(specify highest year completed)
7. State or foreign country of residence of mother
8. Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother
Live Births
Miscarriages
Induced Abortions.
Now, make any argument for or against abortion that you'd like but releasing that information is a violation of civil liberties and basic human decency. I understand the point of it. Releasing it makes abortion a less attractive option; this is simply a deterrent to prevent abortions.
Now, I think that it should be the aim of all sides of the abortion issue to reduce the number of abortions performed down to 0. The difference is that the radicals of the anti-abortion crowd thinks the best way to do it is by punishing those that get abortion. Not a productive strategy.
So what's the better option? There's always adoption. But Oklahoma doesn't seem to want to promote that option. If they did, they might fight to reduce the cost of adoption, which can range from $5,000 to $50,000. Or perhaps provide better funding to adoptive and foster homes.
We can all agree that the abortion issue is a tough one. But there's no one strategy that is going to make either side happy. Will Oklahoma reduce the number of abortions by following through with this plan? I could see a handful of women opting to go to another state, or possibly choosing adoption to avoid this public shaming, but I sincerely doubt it will have a serious impact on the number of abortions performed in the state. This is not the answer.
Thus ends your sermon for the week.
Please rise for the Hymn.
The Freakin' Deacon
3 comments:
Technically, the information Oklahoma is requiring abortion providers to disclose is not in violation of HIPAA laws. This is basic demographic information and cannot be used to identify individuals, which is what HIPAA aims to prevent. Also, state laws are superseded by federal laws, so if OK was proposing something in violation of HIPAA regulations, the feds would step in and put a stop to it.
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/summary/index.html
It may not violate the definition of HIPAA, but it certainly violates the intent. No one can convince me that there will never be a situation that someone couldn't identify someone else based on the information provided. In fact, I'm sure it would happen dozens of times...And if it happens once, would it not constitute a violation of HIPAA? And if it did, would any amount of federal wrist-slaps put that cat back in the bag? With the amount of crazies out there, I'm not comfortable with this information being public, especially after what happened with Dr. Tiller.
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