Seyfarth Synopsis: Access to reproductive health care has been a part of the national debate for years, and even more so since 2022 when the US Supreme Court issued its ruling in Dobbs overturning decades of precedent established under Roe v. Wade.  As a result, the topic has become a focal point in the Presidential election with the two main candidates having seemingly very different platforms and catering to their constituencies who have strongly held beliefs and values on the issue. This aspect has been well covered in the media.  However, employers also have a vested interest in how the federal and state laws and jurisprudence evolve in this area, which is largely dependent on which party wins the White House and down ticket races this November. 

Under Dobbs, the Supreme Court dismantled the federal Constitutional protections around abortion access specifically (and arguably reproductive health care more generally), and in light of the absence of specific federal legislation regarding the right to an abortion, gave the decision on access to each of the states. This triggered fairly immediate action in many of the state legislatures and mobilized citizen initiatives around the country. Continue Reading Reproductive Health Care: A Future in Flux with the Next Administration

This post was originally published to Seyfarth’s Global Privacy Watch blog.

Seyfarth Synopsis: This past Monday, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued its final rule aimed at strengthening the HIPAA Privacy rules as they are applied to reproductive health data.

On the heels of the release of the 2022 US Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Biden Administration directed the Federal agencies to examine what they could do to protect women’s health and privacy. Shortly thereafter, HHS released guidance under HIPAA related to reproductive health care services under a health plan, focusing on information required to be disclosed by law, for law enforcement purposes, and to avert a serious threat to health or safety (see our earlier Alert here). Then, in April 2023, HHS issued proposed modifications to the HIPAA Privacy Rule aimed at these concerns. A year later, the agency finalized those rules on April 22, 2024 – the Final Rule.Continue Reading HHS Strengthens HIPAA Rules to Protect Reproductive Health Privacy