"This effort represents a thinly veiled effort to expose the identities of abortion patients as a means of shaming and discouraging other women from exercising their constitutional rights." SHAME on the Missouri GOP!

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COMMENTS: 
*  Patient records and researcher names, anything associated with abortion must be kept private, secure, and most definitely out of the hands of Republicans. All we ever get from Republicans are empty promises of non-disclosure and no accountability after the leak has happened.  And in this case, there are people out there willing and ready to asassinate, harrass, intimidate, and threaten people associated with the service. Once that genie is out of the bottle, there's no putting it back in.  People will die if Republicans get a hold of that personal information. It's that simple.  The biggest domestic terrorist organization in America is the Republican party.  And they want us to create their asassins hit list for them.
*  Taxpayer funds do not pay for abortions. That is expressly prohibited under federal law and a blatant lie. A fiream can kill a whole lot more people than an abortion, and have done so.  Planned Parenthood has never lied to their patients or the government. Tobacco industry lied to everyone to protect their profits. Planned Parenthood is a non-profit organization.  Conservatives lie about everything to advance their theocratic agenda. Progressives protect the foundations this country was factually built on, not the fantasy conservatives wish it had been built on.
*  I'm glad we live in this wonderous time of 1602 with all these witchhunts afoot. Perhaps next Conservatives will tell us the dangers of allowing women to receive educations, or to leave their homes unescorted by a man.  In fact, if I did not know any better, it would seem that Conservatives have this peculiar desire to model the treatment of women in this country after the likes of Saudia Arabia or Pakistan.
*  They want the names of the patients so they can publicly shame them. That is not ok. Should that ever occur, all the doctors in the state should create a list of every man who has sought help for ED and publish that list so women can reference it and avoid that situation. How would those old male bureaucrats like that do ya think?
* Sometimes the republican party absolutely stuns me with their stupidity, ignorance, but if they want to break a federal law just do it. Republican senators, congressmen and governors will be collecting unemployment after their next election comes up. They are trying to make women second class citizens and then take away their right to even vote.
*  Once again Republicans show that their pretense of smaller government is nothing but a bald-faced lie, and this time they are even determined to break the law in order to further their anti-abortion insanity
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Editorial: Planned Parenthood must stand firm against demand to supply patient records
By the Editorial Board, St.  Louis Post-Dispatch, April 10, 2016

Missouri GOP senators are playing with fire in their maneuver to force abortion service providers to hand over patients’ private medical records. If senators persist with threats to conduct contempt proceedings, they almost certainly will find themselves in an embarrassing court battle that they are unlikely to win.

Federal law is very clear about medical providers’ requirement to protect their patients’ privacy. Senators appear to be trying to compel providers to break federal law. Mary Kogut, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, and James Miller, owner of Brentwood-based Pathology Services Inc., have been issued subpoenas and could face contempt proceedings as early as this week if they do not comply.

Kogut and Miller must not comply with any measure that compels them to break the law, even if it means going to jail.

“We are planning on sticking to our guns,” Kogut told us, adding that Planned Parenthood is trying to find ways to be responsive to the Senate’s records request while still ensuring that patient privacy is respected.

The unanswered question is whether the primary senators behind this election-year ploy will negotiate or hold firm on their demands.

The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, passed in 1996, requires doctors, clinics, hospitals, psychologists, chiropractors, nursing homes, pharmacies and dentists to safeguard patient privacy. The state Legislature has passed laws making very clear that abortion clinics are medical facilities and must adhere to the strictest requirements applied to ambulatory care centers. There’s no question that HIPAA applies.

In a party-line vote, the Senate Rules, Joint Rules, Resolutions and Ethics Committee voted last week to advance a resolution compelling Kogut and Miller to appear before the whole Senate to explain why they should not be punished for failing to comply with a demand to hand over records related to abortions performed from 2010 through 2015.

State Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, is leading the effort to determine what clinics do with fetal tissue after an abortion. Videos released last year were edited to make it appear that Planned Parenthood officials were negotiating to sell fetal tissue to a person posing as a buyer. That person was indicted by a Houston grand jury.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, a Democrat, investigated Planned Parenthood’s operations and found no evidence of wrongdoing. Nevertheless, Schaefer is pursuing his own probe, as well as a race for the GOP nomination for attorney general.

Kogut said that potentially thousands of patient records would be vulnerable if the full Senate votes to proceed.

This effort represents a thinly veiled effort to expose the identities of abortion patients as a means of shaming and discouraging other women from exercising their constitutional rights.

Kogut and Miller have no choice but to stand their ground.
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