With mifepristone in limbo, Harris reaffirms White House commitment to abortion access
Vice President Kamala Harris reaffirmed the administration's commitment to abortion rights on Wednesday with a new rule under HIPAA to protect abortion patients' records. With Americans' access to the abortion pill mifepristone still in limbo, Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday convened a meeting of a White House task force on reproductive health care during which Cabinet officials expanded on a new way they intend to protect a person's privacy when it comes to abortion access. The meeting fell just hours after the Department of Health and Human Services announced it had drafted a new federal rule intended to make clear to doctors and other medical professionals that divulging details of a person getting an abortion violates the privacy law HIPAA. Harris explained that an exception written into the 1996 HIPAA law provides that if law enforcement officials needed information in pursuit of a criminal matter, they could access a person's medical records aft...