Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs has called on lawmakers to repeal a state law requiring annual abortion reports, saying it violates patient privacy, and other Democratic officials have made similar demands. trying to reduce or eliminate.
Hobbs, a Democrat in a state where Republicans control the Legislature, said in a statement Wednesday that the state released a report covering 2023. “We are in no position to track the health history of Arizonans.”
“Starting a family is a delicate and personal experience for women and their loved ones. There should be no room for government oversight and making its decisions public.”
Concerns about the collection of data on abortion, especially as Donald Trump prepares to take office again and potentially implement policies hostile to abortion rights, or at least less unfavorable. Mr. Hobbes is not the only one doing so.
“It's worth thinking carefully about the risks and benefits of collecting data in this new environment,” says Guttmacher Institute researcher Isaac Maddow Zimet. The Guttmacher Institute is a research organization that supports abortion rights and conducts independent surveys of abortion providers. .
The report began with voluntary participation by licensed health care providers in 1976 and became mandatory in 2010. The state collects detailed information, including whether minors have parental consent, the patient's age, marital status, and race and ethnicity. It also reports how many abortions and live births the patient has had, how far along the pregnancy was, and whether the abortion involved a procedure or medication. However, this data does not include patient names, addresses, dates of birth, or social security numbers.
Rachel LeBouche, an abortion law scholar and dean of Temple University's Beasley School of Law, said there are risks in reporting for abortion rights advocates, especially when they come from states with bans, and that most of the data is based on exceptional cases of abortion. He said it shows how often it was provided.
“The tension we face is the issue of patient privacy, but also the pressing suspicion that the exception is being abused,” she says.
Several Democratic-controlled states have eased reporting requirements in recent years, citing privacy concerns and the burden on providers who collect all the information. Republican-run states generally have many demands, many of which ban abortions at all stages of pregnancy or after about the first six weeks, before most people realize they are pregnant.
Michigan just released abortion data for 2023 and says it will no longer collect it at all. Illinois has switched to aggregate reporting rather than requiring providers to submit information about individual abortions. Minnesota has reduced the number of questions required for the count, removing data on things like marital status, race and ethnicity. New York City also reduced the number of questions asked of its patient population.
Access to abortion has been changing across the country since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending abortion rights nationwide.
Arizona's policy changes have been more turbulent than in most other states. Health care providers stopped offering abortions in 2022, but have since resumed, amid legal questions about whether an 1864 ban on nearly all abortions was valid. Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court ruled that the old law could go into effect, but has since put implementation on hold. The state repealed the old law before it took effect. And in November, voters added abortion rights to the state constitution.
Four states with generally broad abortion rights laws have not participated in the federal government's compendium of state data for years. California and Maryland do not collect data. New Hampshire and New Jersey require hospitals and other health care providers to supply it voluntarily.
