Silfen Molly
Harvard Law School, USA.
J Health Law. 2005 Winter;38(1):121-35.
In February 2004, privacy concerns captured the public's attention when the United States government, the defendant in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, sought to subpoena the medical records of patients receiving intact dilation and extraction (also known as "partial birth") abortions in six different hospitals and six Planned Parenthood centers across the country. Three different federal court cases explored the enforceability of the subpoenas. This Note explores the rationales used by the three courts in examining the privacy interests involved. It then suggests some possible solutions for systematically protecting medical information: a legal solution; a technological solution; and a combination of both. The legal solution involves creating a federal physician-patient privilege, similar to that enforced in many states and parallel to the federal psychotherapist-patient privilege. The technological solution requires the complicity of multiple jurisdictions to verify the necessity of revealing medical information. Taken together, these solutions can assist the government in protecting its citizens by imposing more checks on itself.
2004年2月，隐私问题引起了公众的关注。当时，美国政府作为一起质疑2003年《部分出生堕胎禁令法案》合宪性诉讼的被告，试图传唤全国六家不同医院和六个计划生育中心接受完整扩张和吸出术（也称为“部分出生”）堕胎患者的病历。三个不同的联邦法院案件探讨了传票的可执行性。本笔记探讨了三个法院在审查所涉隐私利益时所采用的理由。然后提出了一些系统保护医疗信息的可能解决方案：法律解决方案；技术解决方案；以及两者的结合。法律解决方案涉及创建一项联邦医患特权，类似于许多州所执行的特权，且与联邦心理治疗师-患者特权并行。技术解决方案要求多个司法管辖区共同协作，以核实披露医疗信息的必要性。综合起来，这些解决方案可以通过对政府自身施加更多制衡，来协助政府保护其公民。
