Fight for secrecy

On Christmas week, Christina Scifres, an Indiana abortionist, sued the state’s Department of Health and medical licensing board. Indiana’s abortion reporting requirement, she argued, conflicts with new federal privacy ­regulations. But the lawsuit faces an uncertain future under a second Trump administration.

The same day she filed suit, a Biden administration rule from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services took effect, prohibiting medical professionals from sharing healthcare information that law enforcement could use against someone who sought, obtained, or provided “reproductive health care.”

Scifres argues that Indiana’s law requiring abortionists to submit abortion reports to the state—including the mother’s age, marital status, and reason for the abortion—is at odds with the federal rule. Abortion is legal in Indiana only to save the life or physical health of the mother, in cases of a “lethal fetal anomaly,” or in cases of rape or incest. State law says the reporting requirement is meant to ensure “abortions are done only under the authorized provisions of the law.” Scifres asks the court to block the reporting law, which she claims is preempted by the federal rule.

But Carolyn McDonnell, litigation counsel for Americans United for Life, thinks the lawsuit is unlikely to succeed. “The federal rule does not apply if the abortion is unlawful under state law,” she said, commenting on the case by email. She noted Indiana officials collect the data explicitly to monitor illegal abortions.

Regardless of the legal arguments, the incoming Republican administration could short-circuit the case. “This case could become moot if the Trump administration repeals the underlying administrative rule, which means that the court would have to dismiss the case,” McDonnell wrote. However, she added that if the administration keeps the rule and only alters it, Scifres could make changes to the complaint in hopes of continuing the lawsuit.

Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

An abortion campaign’s troubled end

Floridians Protecting Freedom, the political committee that championed Florida’s November pro-abortion ballot measure, disbanded at the end of December after paying thousands of dollars to settle allegations of petition fraud. The proposed amendment, which would have added a right to abortion to the Florida Constitution, fell 3 percentage points short of the 60% of votes needed to pass. In October, a report from the Florida State Department alleged that signature gatherers for Floridians Protecting Freedom had submitted fraudulent petitions and forged signatures in order to get the pro-abortion amendment on the ballot. The group retaliated by suing the state for alleged election interference.

But according to a December report from state officials, three signature gatherers with the organization have been convicted for petition fraud, and the group has paid thousands of dollars in civil fines for violating state election laws. Floridians Protecting Freedom also paid the State Department $164,000 in a settlement and agreed to drop its lawsuits against the state. —L.S.