WASHINGTON, March 2, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In the latest development surrounding the lawsuit that seeks to challenge the Partial-Birth Abortion Act, the Justice Department is seeking to prevent the five Planned Parenthood doctors who filed the suit from giving testimony in the case. The doctors who filed the suit continue to frustrate Justice Department requests to have access to their medical files.
The doctors argue that the Ban, signed into law last year by President Bush, is unconstitutional, because the partial-birth abortions were necessary for the health of the mothers who procured them—a claim the Justice Department is seeking to establish—but, without access to patient files, has no way to make that determination. The National Abortion Federation has previously argued that patient records are essential for determining the medical necessity of an abortion, as pointed out by the Justice Department’s motion filed in the U.S. District Court in New York. “There can be no question but that the government is entitled to the records, redacted to protect the identity of particular patients, in its defence of the act,” the motion said. If the five doctors plant to testify that the procedures were medically necessary, the Justice Department argues they need to know the circumstances surrounding each case, to determine the medical necessity of the abortions. The background and circumstances are only to be found in the patient files. The Justice Department has given an assurance that they are not interested in learning the identities of the women, whose names and any other identifying information could be withheld. Officials said that government lawyers commonly subpoena medical records with names and other identifying information withheld for other types of cases, such as fraud.
Medical organizations euphemistically call the partial-birth abortion an “intact dilation and extraction,” during which, a full-term baby’s legs and torso are pulled from the uterus before its skull is punctured and brain removed.
See related coverage: https://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0304/130158.html See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/feb/04021207.html https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/feb/04022707.html