When people go into the medical field, they often do so with the noble goal of helping people stay healthy and safe. That is certainly the case for Dr. Carmen Purl, who regularly treats patients for illnesses, injuries, and other ailments at her family medicine practice in Dumas, Texas.
But new regulations announced by the Biden administration are threatening the ability of physicians such as Dr. Purl to protect and advocate for those in their care. If the administration is successful, it will prevent doctors from fulfilling their important duty to report abuse experienced by their patients.
HIPAA and the privacy rule
In 1996, Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The act’s main purpose was to make the health-care system more efficient and “simplify the administration of health insurance.”
HIPAA generally prevents health-care providers from disclosing a patient’s health information “without authorization” from the patient. But the act explicitly preserves state authority to enforce laws “providing for the reporting of disease or injury, child abuse, birth, or death, public health surveillance, or public health investigation or intervention.”
HIPAA protections also include a privacy rule enacted by HHS in 2000 and designed to protect patients’ sensitive information while allowing the flow of health information needed to provide and promote high-quality health care for the public. But the Biden administration illegally changed this rule to further its pro-abortion agenda.
The Biden administration’s illegal rule changes
In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published changes to the privacy rule that would hinder the ability of states to enforce laws relating to abortion and experimental drugs and surgeries for children. The rules are set to take effect in December.
Specifically, the rule changes prohibit doctors from reporting abuse or responding to state investigations to protect public health when the information concerns abortion or so-called gender transition procedures, which the Biden administration deceptively labels “reproductive health care.”
HHS admitted in its explanation of the rule changes that they were a response to “[t]he Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs [that] overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, thereby enabling states to significantly restrict access to abortion.”
In other words, because the Biden administration disagrees with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs, it illegally changed federal law to try to prevent states from enforcing laws limiting abortion.
Doctors have a responsibility to protect their patients, and that includes reporting any suspected abuse. But the Biden administration is trying to prevent health-care professionals such as Dr. Purl from fulfilling this duty.
A doctor seeks to protect her patients
Dr. Purl owns and operates her own clinic, Dr. Purl’s Fast Care Walk In Clinic, in Dumas, Texas. She operates the clinic according to her ethical beliefs that elective abortion harms both the mother and the unborn child, and that life-altering gender-transition efforts for children are also harmful.
Dr. Purl regularly encounters patients who have had or are considering having abortions or so-called “transition procedures.” For some of Dr. Purl’s patients, their reproductive health information has suggested that they may have been victims of abuse.
Texas law requires Dr. Purl to report suspected abuse or neglect of a child to state officials. It also requires her to report suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation of a vulnerable adult. But under the HHS changes to HIPAA’s privacy rule, Dr. Purl is prohibited from reporting many of these facts.
For example, the rule changes arguably would prevent Dr. Purl from reporting information about a patient being pressured to undergo an abortion, a patient who had received an abortion in another state, or a minor patient undergoing or being scheduled for experimental cross-sex hormones, prescriptions, or surgeries.
Dr. Purl wants to comply with Texas law, but doing so would require her to ignore the Biden administration’s rule changes. The federal punishment for following Texas law in violation of the HHS rule changes could be up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.
Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit on Dr. Purl’s behalf challenging the Biden administration’s unlawful rule changes. The government has no authority to prohibit doctors from effectively protecting and advocating for their patients by reporting abuse.
Purl v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
- April 2024: HHS published changes to HIPAA’s privacy rule prohibiting doctors from reporting abuse relating to abortion or experimental “gender transition” efforts for children.
- October 2024: ADF attorneys filed a lawsuit on behalf of Dr. Purl challenging the harmful rule changes.