Protecting Patients and Providers
Overview
Ensuring the safety and privacy of patients and healthcare providers must be a priority for all states. However, with the rapid increase in pregnancy criminalization since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, relentless attacks on the transgender community, and escalating breadth and depth of clinic violence, this is becoming more and more difficult.
The digital footprint we all leave – from electronic health records and period-tracking apps to GPS tracking – requires states to enact laws ensuring both physical and digital protections for patients and healthcare providers.
Additionally, Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act corollaries and other creative state legislative strategies are an essential opportunity to address clinic violence and protect communities, especially since the federal FACE Act ceased being enforced barring “extraordinary circumstances.” Please see below for model legislation drafted by our partners at the Feminist Majority Foundation.
Additional Resources
-
- These model bills include language from privacy bills introduced or passed in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico and Texas
- SiX’s Data Privacy One-Pager provides a quick backgrounder on the intersection of data collection and the importance of patients privacy along with state examples.
- Electronic Frontier Foundation article “Location Tracking Tools Endanger Abortion Access. Lawmakers Must Act Now” provides immediate steps that lawmakers can take.
- SiX’s Repro State Learning Lab: FACE Act Corollaries and other Creative State Legislative Strategies to Enhance Abortion Provider and Patient Safety, featuring guest speakers duVergne Gaines, JD, and Teresa Cisneros Burton, JD, from the Feminist Majority Foundation.
- Feminist Majority Foundation’s Model Bill: Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrances (FACE) Act.