LUBBOCK — The state of Texas has filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration to block federal rules that would protect women’s medical records from criminal investigation if they cross state lines to seek an abortion in a state where abortion is legal.
The lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services seeks to overturn the regulations finalized in April.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton accused the federal government of trying to “undermine” states’ ability to enforce the laws in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Lubbock that appears to be the first legal challenge from a state with anti-abortion laws in place since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and ended abortion rights nationwide.
“With this rule, the Biden Administration is making a backdoor attempt to weaken Texas law by undermining state law enforcement investigations related to medical procedures,” Paxton said in a news release.
The rule essentially prohibits state and local authorities from collecting reproductive medical records from health care providers or health insurers for civil, criminal, or administrative investigations in states where abortion is legal, and is intended to protect women who live in states where abortion is illegal.
In a statement, HHS declined to comment on the lawsuit but said the rule was “unique.”
“The Biden-Harris Administration will continue to protect reproductive health privacy and ensure that women’s medical records cannot be used against them, their doctors or loved ones simply because they received necessary and legitimate reproductive care,” the department said.
Texas’s anti-abortion law, like those of other states, exempts women who seek abortions from criminal prosecution. The ban provides for enforcement either through private civil suits or through state criminal law. be punishable by life imprisonmentAll those responsible for helping women get it.
It is not clear whether officials sought patient medical records related to abortions. But the state has sought records related to gender reassignment care, and did so last year from at least two out-of-state medical centers. Like many Republican-majority states, Texas bans gender reassignment care for minors.
At least 22 Democratic-controlled states have laws or executive orders that seek to protect abortion providers and patients from law enforcement raids in states that ban abortion.
The federal regulations in question are amendments to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 that prohibit health care providers and insurers from divulging patients’ medical information, but generally allow law enforcement to access those records for investigations.
A group of Republican attorneys general from states with strict abortion laws had urged the Department of Health and Human Services to repeal the rule when it was drafted last year. In a 2023 letter to the department, the group said the regulation would illegally interfere with states’ ability to enforce the law.
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Associated Press writer Jamie Stengle contributed from Dallas.
