4 6 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, February 13, 2004 NEWS Ashcroft defends subpoenas of doctors' abortion records Y§ >{ NEW YORK (AP) - Under fire from abortion-rights groups, Attorney General John Ashcroft insisted yesterday that doctor-patient privacy is not threatened by a govern- ment attempt to subpoena medical records in a lawsuit over the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. At stake are records documenting certain late-term abor- tions performed by doctors who have joined in a legal chal- . . . . . .:.. lenge of the disputed ban. President Bush signed the act into law last year. Critics of the subpoenas accuse the U.S. Department of tJustice trying to intimidate doctors and patients involved in the contested type of abortion. At least six hospitals have been targeted by subpoenas, "}including facilities in New York and Michigan which said they are weighing how to respond. Last week, a federal judge in Chicago blocked release of records from Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Another judge is considering a similar request from Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia. The Justice Department also subpoenaed the records of University of Michigan physician Timothy Johnson, who is a plaintiff in a legal case against the federal ban. Ashcroft said the Justice Department will accept the records in edited form, after deleting or masking any infor- mation that would identify a patient. Abortion-rights supporters nonetheless depicted the sub- AP PHOTO poenas as a dangerous intrusion into medical confidentiality. Attorney General John Ashcroft speaks to reporters during a news conference at the Bali Regional Ministerial Meeting on "People's medical records should not be the tools of polit- Counter Terrorism Wednesday. Ashcroft defended his position supporting federal subpoenas of doctors' files yesterday against ical operatives," said Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.). "All Ameri- critics who say such subpoenas violate doctor-patient privacy. cans should have the right to visit their doctor and receive sound medical attention without the fear of Big Brother looking into those records." The federal ban seeks to outlaw a procedure referred to by critics as partial-birth abortion and by medical organiza- tions as "intact dilatation and extraction" - or D&X. During D&X, a fetus's legs and torso are pulled from the uterus before its skull is punctured. An estimated 2,200 to 5,000 such abortions are per- formed annually in the United States, out of 1.3 million total abortions. The doctors targeted by the subpoenas have contended in lawsuits that the ban is unconstitutional because it is overly broad and lacks any exemption for a woman's health. Ashcroft, at a news conference in Washington, said the subpoenas were needed to enable the government to rebut these claims. "The Congress has enacted a law with the president's signature that outlaws this terrible practice," Ashcroft said. "We sought from the judge authority to get medical records to find out whether indeed the allegation by the plaintiffs, that it's medically necessary, is really a fact." In the Chicago case, the Justice Department sought med- ical records from Northwestern Memorial Hospital relating to abortions performed by Dr. John Hammond. U.S. District Judge Charles Kocoras quashed the subpoe- na, saying Illinois' medical privacy law superseded the gov- ernment's need for the records. Kocoras said patients' privacy could be jeopardized even if their names were deleted, because their prior medical his- tory would still be disclosed. I I The Michigan Daily presents: 4 Happy Valentine's Day! a