The so-called interoperability of medical data is generally reckoned to be a good thing. Abortion is the most evident area, but divergences in state law increasingly apply to gender-affirming care and substance abuse treatment. Those divergences, Shachar told me, make the relevant medical records especially sensitive to the point where they need to be protected from law enforcement. The challenge goes beyond simply shielding direct evidence of a legal abortion — such as a prescription for mifepristone — from prying law enforcement eyes in an antiabortion state. “There’s a perception that abortions or gender-affirming care exist on their own islands separate from other medical care,” Shachar says.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 12, 2024 19:13 UTC