U.S. Seeks Late-Term Abortion Records

Under fire from abortion rights groups, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft insisted Thursday that doctor-patient privacy was not threatened by a government attempt to subpoena medical records in a lawsuit over the federal ban on a controversial abortion procedure.

At stake are records documenting certain late-term abortions performed by doctors who have joined in a legal challenge of the disputed ban. President Bush signed the act banning the abortions last year.

Critics of the subpoenas accuse the Justice Department of trying to intimidate doctors and patients involved in such abortions.

At least six hospitals have been targeted by subpoenas, including facilities in New York and Michigan, which said they were weighing how to respond. Last week, a judge in Chicago blocked the release of records from Northwestern Memorial Hospital; another judge is considering a similar request involving Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia.

Ashcroft said the Justice Department would accept the records in edited form, after deleting or masking any information that would identify a patient. Abortion rights supporters nonetheless depicted the subpoenas as a dangerous intrusion into medical confidentiality.

“People’s medical records should not be the tools of political operatives,” said Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.). “All Americans should have the right to visit their doctor and receive sound medical attention without the fear of Big Brother looking into those records.”

The ban outlaws a procedure referred to by critics as “partial-birth abortion” and by medical organizations as “intact dilation and extraction.”

The doctors targeted by the subpoenas have contended in lawsuits that the ban is unconstitutional because it is overly broad and lacks any exemption for a woman’s health.

Ashcroft, at a news conference in Washington, said the subpoenas were needed to enable the government to rebut the claims.