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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowFor the second time, a Marion County judge has ruled that Indiana’s Department of Health cannot release abortion records known as terminated pregnancy reports (TPRs) for public release.
The Wednesday ruling from Marion County Superior Court Judge James A. Joven detailed a temporary restraining order, which will last at least 10 days. The underlying legal challenge was brought by two OBGYNs who perform the reproductive health care procedure.
Joven concluded that TPRs are medical records and, as such, not subject to public record laws.
“A TPR is created by a medical provider as the consequence of a medical service, and it contains highly sensitive information about a patient’s demographics, medical history, and medical care that was obtained by the provider while treating the patient,” Joven wrote. “The language of the TPR statute suggests that the legislature views TPRs as private medical records rather than public records subject to disclosure under APRA … The statute directs the Department to compile a ‘public report’ based on data contained in the TPRs on a quarterly basis, suggesting that the TPRs themselves are not meant to be public.”
Following the implementation of Indiana’s near-total abortion ban, abortions sharply fell from hundreds of procedures each month to dozens. With so few procedures, some voiced concerns that the abortion records could be reverse engineered to identify patients.
The motion comes after the state settled with an anti-abortion group earlier this month and agreed to make the records public after halting the practice last year. The reports include information about the procedure itself but also direct abortion providers to collect patient data, including their medical history and demographics.
Drs. Caitlin Bernard and Caroline Rouse subsequently filed the lawsuit to prevent the disclosure to Voices for Life.
Joven said that group could further publicize the records, which are also released in an aggregated form on a quarterly basis. He also cited a Medical Licensing Board ruling against Bernard, who was penalized in 2023 after sharing a young rape victim’s age and state with a reporter.
That information was used to identify the girl. Both data points are included in the abortion records.
Additionally, releasing such records could be damaging to the doctor-patient relationship, Joven said.
“We are grateful to see that, for now, our patients’ privacy is protected,” said Bernard and Rouse in a joint statement. “We hope that the court will continue to prevent the unnecessary release of people’s personal health information, which puts both physicians and patients in jeopardy for simply providing and receiving needed healthcare.”
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