Indiana OB-GYNs File Lawsuit to Block Release of Abortion Patients’ Health Information
Court Sets Hearing for Tomorrow on TRO Application
02.10.25 – (PRESS RELEASE) Last week, two Indiana OB-GYNS—Dr. Caitlin Bernard and Dr. Caroline Rouse—filed a new lawsuit in Marion County Superior Court to stop the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) from releasing sensitive information about their abortion patients’ demographics, medical history, and medical treatment.
The physicians asked the court to enter a temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking the release of the health information. The court has set a hearing for February 11, 2025, after IDOH indicated that it would not release any of the information at issue before February 13, 2025.
The new lawsuit followed a settlement agreement between IDOH and an anti-abortion organization—brokered by the Indiana Attorney General’s office—under which IDOH agreed to treat terminated pregnancy reports (TPRs) as public records and release them in response to public records requests. TPRs – which physicians are required to submit for every abortion they provide in Indiana – include 31 data points, including the patient’s age, county and state of residence, marital status, race, and ethnicity, as well as details about the patient’s medical history and the circumstances of their abortion.
IDOH and Indiana’s Public Access Counselor previously concluded that such data could be reverse engineered to identify individual patients. Further, the Medical Licensing Board of Indiana previously ruled that disclosing even a subset of the information contained in a TPR would violate HIPAA and state law protections for patient privacy. The Indiana Attorney General, however, has advocated for public access to abortion patients’ personal health information to empower anti-abortion organizations to police hospitals’ compliance with Indiana’s abortion laws.
“We are once again in court defending our patients and their right to privacy,” Drs. Bernard and Rouse said in a joint statement. “Everyone receiving medical care deserves to have their personal health decisions and pregnancy outcomes protected. There is no reason to release this sensitive information to the public. We will keep fighting to protect patient privacy and the trust between doctors and patients.”
Since Indiana’s strict abortion ban took effect in August 2023, few pregnant people have been able to obtain abortion care in the state, thus raising the risk that TPRs could be used to identify patients. Indeed, only 113 people were able to access legal abortion care in Indiana during the first three quarters of 2024. IDOH is required to publish quarterly reports containing aggregate data derived from the TPRs.
“Disclosing abortion patients’ personal health information to anti-abortion vigilantes puts the safety of both patients and doctors at-risk,” said Stephanie Toti, Executive Director of the Lawyering Project. “We are hopeful that the court will stop IDOH from following through on its plans to release information that is otherwise protected by both federal and state law.”
Drs. Bernard and Rouse intervened in the 2024 lawsuit by an anti-abortion organization that led to last week’s settlement agreement between that organization and IDOH. They are represented by the Lawyering Project and Kathrine D. Jack of the Jack Law Office LLC.
###