They’ve been screaming about that on a fundie board we read sometimes. This is really reaching, if you ask me, but one guy there told me that you find out who was pregnant during that time frame, and then go around to each of them and get documentation on the outcome of that pregnancy. Anyone who can’t prove she miscarried or adopted, or who can’t show you the baby, there’s your suspect pool. Some other numbnuts suggested you DNA test everyone who had a positive test and match them against the corpse, like they can force all these women to undergo testing which could incriminate themselves. Why the hell they even think someone who threw their baby in a dumpster bothered to get any prenatal care or a lab test is utterly beyond me.
Personally, I think PP’s doing the right thing. A lot of the patients there are in abusive relationships or other situations where the family finding out they go to PP could end up with them getting hurt. There’s a fucking reason PP has such elaborate measures in place to make sure only you know it’s them contacting you, but the fundies just don’t seem to get it.
A baby was found dead in the local garbage dump. Babies don’t make their way there by accident. The police would like to find out how the baby got there, a position I can understand wholeheartedly.
That being said, the police do have the right to your medical information for the purpose of legitimate investigations. The police did have a proper court order for the results of pregnancy tests (but no other records). That means that the court found sufficient reason for the police to obtain those results. FTR, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld Planned Parenthood; PP does not have to release their records.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it here: There is NO such thing as absolute confidentiality when it comes to medical records. The police can get them as part of an investigation, provided they have a court order. This is not a new thing. either.
This has been covered here before, in this thread.
I never said there is an absolute right ot privacy of medical records. If they have a suspect, then the police have a total right to look at her medical records.
But they are treating all women who were pregnant during that time as suspects. That’s wrong.
If there was a rape and the DNA sample showed that the rapist had type B blood, would it be OK for the police to ask all doctors and hospitals to give them a list of men with type B blood?
This is so messed up. What exactly do they think they will accomplish with this list of women who found out they were pregnant at one of these clinics? Interview them all?
This isn’t messed up. They have a dead baby and no idea how that baby got there.
Granted, there are probably other, better ways to find the mother, but the police have turned up squat. This was a last-ditch effort to try to locate the mother. Nothing more, nothing less.
I’m not going to get back into this one, except to say that there is no ongoing threat to the public safety that outweighs the potential harm caused by the release of this information. Therefore, the release is improper.
It is wrong. One has to weigh the rights of those who will be harmed by this, the unfortunate precident in law, and the likelyhood of thir being succsessful.
On a basic harm vs. benefit, one death, one possible murder, weighed against the potential murders of women whose family decide that if she has been secretly taking a pregnancy test she deserves to die.
Also there is the likelyhood that the mother did not recieve pregnancy care in the area.
Are we really afraid that this women will be murdering more babies? Is there anyway to prove that the child was not still born?
Fishing expeditions are illegal and should remain so.
One of the big points here is that Planned Parenthood takes its patients’ privacy more seriously than most GYN clinics. CrazyCatLady has had some routine GYN care there in the past, and they went through an elaborate spiel about how they can contact and communicate results with her without letting anyone else know who was calling.
When the police can get those records and then go around knocking on these women’s doors to say, “We heard you had a pregnancy test at Planned Parenthood. How’d that come out?”, they are undermining those efforts, all for a minimal chance at success. You don’t have to make many such trips, in my opinion, to guarantee at least one episode of domestic violence as a result.
What if some of those women had a really early miscarriage, and never sought medical care? (It happens.) She had a postive pregnancy test, and no baby or abortion records, so she becomes Suspect #1.
No, medical records are not 100% protected, but you can’t just march in and look at them for any reason, either. I think PP was right to resist, and if it had been my clinic, I would have done the same thing.
yes, they have a dead baby and no idea who/how. And frankly, that’s the point.
They have zero evidence that the mother was a resident of that town 8 - 12 months ago.
They have zero evidence that the mother sought out local pre natal care.
They have zero evidence that even if the mother was a resident and sought out local pre natal care, that she gave a correct name and could be traced.
and based on the hope that all of the above is true, they are willing to violate the confidentiality of medical records.
I think the comparison to the blood type evidence is totally on target.
There’s been lots of unsolved murders where the police have (at least) the blood type of the perp. When they have a suspect, they can demand a blood sample to discover if the types match. Key phrase is “when they have a suspect”. Would any of these people who think it’s perfectly reasonable to demand the release of medical records see it the same way if the police were demanding the blood typing of all persons 'cause they want to find out who has blood type B? (Then of course all of the questions and so on).
Who would they question? The woman herself (who may still be very depressed over the abortion, adoption or miscarriage)? Surely they wouldn’t stop at that, since they can simply claim that they miscarried early on. They’d need to question friends, relatives, co-workers. They’d have to discover the list of 'friends, relatives, co-workers. Now, you’ve got your landlord being asked for information about you, in connection w/a police investigation. YOur boss. Your neighbors. Your parents who may not have known about the pregnancy. Your extremely religious grandmother who would have fits if she knew you’d been sexually active. Hell, anyone except your doctor and who you choose to tell is too much in my book.
This aught to frighten people down to their very souls.
If they want to do that, they’re going to have to ask some even-more-private questions to the women in the area who did happen to be pregnant at about the right time. Each and every one of them will have to fight for her 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination when these questions start flying down the pike. And do you honestly think the investigators will stop at subpoenaing just their medical records? When they have a pool of, what, 100 suspects? 1000? When than happens, they’re going to subpoena phone records, bank records, employment records, you name it. All in the name of finding one criminally negligent mother.
AND NONE OF THESE ACTIVITIES ARE GOING TO BRING THAT DEAD BABY BACK TO LIFE!!
scenario 1
some bereaved parents who have just lost their baby answer the door to cops who want to know if they killed it?
scenario 2
a husband/father/boyfriend beats up or disowns the woman who went for the test because of her subsequent decision?
scenario3
policeman A finds out his wife/sister/girlfriend/daughter was/is pregnant, and decides to go home and beat her up?
or the father of the baby?
or her abortion doctor?
or does something even worse to them?
any of these things happen do you seriously believe the police will take legal or financial responsibility for them?
fine, ask if the health profesionals have any suspicions as to patients in their care.
fine, ask if they mind giving names.
but a BLANKET look at ALL women who called for tests?
wrong.
just plain wrong.
on SO many levels.
and kinda dozy when you can buy a 99% reliable test from a chemist, or work it out yourself after a couple of months.
Also, you don’t know it was HER who did it.
boyfriend, father, husband, pimp, dealer, could have done it, they don’t know.
and personally, any woman who does that, has to be desperate and in need of help, not punishment.
I know a young lady who went to Planned Parenthood for some routine (and not-so-routine) care, and let me tell you, those precautions aren’t worth a hill of beans when it says “PLANNED PARENTHOOD” in big letters on the caller ID box.
Of course a woman in that position (where merely the CALLER ID “planned parenthood” would cause extreme problems), wouldn’t be likely to give a phone number where that would be a problem (ie she could say she didn’t have a phone, give a friend’s phone etc.)
This nothing less than an assault on our basic constitutional freedoms, and nothing more than the frantic thrashing of law & order fanatics who would sacrifice the principles of American law to punish someone, anyone or everyone for this crime.
I would rather let 100 baby murderers run free, than to pillage the Constitution in the name of justice.
Whether they’re pro-life or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that a judge was convinced that this fishing expedition was legitimate. A prosecutor is merely, at the investigatory stage, an advocate for the police department which wishes to go someplace with a legal wedge and lever. Judges. however, are supposed to act impartially, and are supposed to weigh the probative value of a potential against the invasion of privacy that will occur.
The other issue that’s relevant is what on earth the doctors were thinking. Did they honestly believe that there was no recourse when someone came knocking with a subpoena duces tecum demanding this very specific, highly private information? Didn’t they care? Where were the lawyers? The ACLU?
There was a chain of failure that allowed this process to happen. We can point fingers at a couple of individuals, but it was really the result of a conspiracy of overreaction, underreaction and complete inaction that led to this point.