U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo granted an injunction this past Sunday that will protect Texas physician Carmen Purl from new rules that restrict how doctors can protect patients from the harms of abortion and “gender transition.”
While Purl’s lawsuit is ongoing, the court’s injunction allows Purl and her medical office to continue serving patients without fear of legal action from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The legal challenge centers on the Biden administration’s HIPAA Privacy Rule, which took effect in June of this year.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a federal law that establishes standards for sharing an individual’s private health information without their consent. This year, the Biden-Harris administration introduced an updated privacy rule ostensibly aimed at providing greater protections for women.
But the rule imposes unprecedented restrictions on doctors’ ability to report cases of abuse—such as women and minors being coerced into abortions—or minors receiving harmful “gender transition” drugs or surgeries. Additionally, the rule redefines key terms such as person, individual and child to categorically exclude the unborn, effectively removing a medical professional’s ability to advocate for the health and safety of unborn children.
Like many other doctors, Purl said she fears that the added restrictions will prevent her from being able to protect her patients from abuse without facing legal and financial repercussions. That concern was echoed by the court in its opinion, “Requiring a doctor … to navigate [the rule’s] requirements and make perplexing legal judgments necessarily limits reporting child abuse.”
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Senior Counsel Julie Marie Blake, who is representing Purl, said in a press release: “Doctors and states should be able to protect patients from abuse. The court rightly ruled that this unlawful rule change would have weaponized laws about privacy that have nothing to do with abortion or gender identity. The Biden administration attempted to undermine state laws that protect mothers and unborn children from the harms of abortion, and vulnerable children from dangerous and sterilizing procedures like puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and life-altering surgeries.
“This ruling falls in line with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs that affirms that states—not unelected bureaucrats—should set abortion policy and be free to protect unborn life.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who filed a separate lawsuit against the HHS in September, reiterated that sentiment. “This new rule actively undermines Congress’s clear statutory meaning when HIPAA was passed, and it reflects the Biden Administration’s disrespect for the law,” Paxton said. “The federal government is attempting to undermine Texas’s law enforcement capabilities, and I will not allow this to happen.”
