A federal judge on Wednesday blocked a Biden-era rule from the Department of Health and Human Services, which prohibited sharing abortion and “reproductive health care” information with law enforcement.
The 2024 HHS rule under then-President Joe Biden was part of his administration’s efforts in the aftermath of the 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to counter state abortion laws, after the high court ruled that states should determine abortion rather than the federal government.
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas vacated the rule, arguing that the agency had erred in three ways, including by “unlawfully” limiting public health laws, “impermissibly” redefining “person” and “public health” in federal law, and attempting to use congressional authority not specifically given by lawmakers to HHS.
“HHS lacked clear delegated authority to fashion special protections for medical information produced by politically favored medical procedures,” Kacsmaryk said in his ruling Wednesday.
The judge ruled that the effort attempted to expand the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s scope beyond what Congress had authorized.
“In sum, HIPAA confers authority to promulgate regulations protecting ‘individually identifiable health information,’” Kacsmaryk wrote. “But it confers no authority to distinguish between types of health information to accomplish political ends like protecting access to abortion and gender-transition procedures. Thus, HHS lacks the authority to issue regulations that enact heightened protections for information about politically favored procedures.”
The lawsuit challenging the 2024 HHS rule was brought by the Alliance Defending Freedom, which argued the rule unlawfully restricted the ability for doctors to protect patients from harms caused by abortions and transgender procedures.
“The rule undermines state laws that protect mothers and unborn children from the harms of abortion, and vulnerable children from dangerous and sterilizing procedures like puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and life-altering surgeries,” ADF senior counsel Julie Marie Blake said about the rule in 2024.
“The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs resoundingly affirmed that states—not unelected bureaucrats—should set abortion policy and be free to protect unborn life,” Blake added.
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Kacsmaryk was appointed to the federal district court in Texas by President Donald Trump and has issued key rulings in a variety of politically charged cases, including the Food and Drug Administration’s authorization of the abortion pill mifepristone.
Kacsmaryk’s 2023 ruling finding the abortion pill’s approval should be suspended was later reversed by the Supreme Court, finding the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the approval of the drug.