Two Indiana abortion providers sued the state to keep certain records private on behalf of their patients. Photo by Getty Images.

By Whitney Downard
Indiana Capital Chronicle

INDIANAPOLIS — Two Indiana abortion providers filed a lawsuit in Marion County to stop the Indiana Department of Health from releasing individual terminated pregnancy reports.

On Monday, Feb. 3, the state agency settled with an anti-abortion group 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.

Caitlin Bernard and Caroline Rouse, both licensed OBGYN physicians, urged the Marion County Superior Court to enter a temporary restraining order that would block the health department from releasing the records. The court set a hearing for Tuesday, Feb. 11.

“We are once again in court defending our patients and their right to privacy,” said Bernard and Rouse in a joint statement. “Everyone receiving medical care deserves to have their personal health decisions and pregnancy outcomes protected. There is no reason to release this sensitive information to the public. We will keep fighting to protect patient privacy and the trust between doctors and patients.”

Following the implementation of Indiana’s near-total abortion ban, abortions sharply fell from hundreds of procedures each month to dozens. The Indiana Department of Health sought to clarify whether having so few procedures might put patient confidentiality at risk, ultimately determining that individual reports could be reverse engineered to identify Hoosiers. The state still released quarterly, aggregate reports.

Voices for Life, a South Bend group, sued, arguing that state law didn’t allow for such withholding. A Marion County court ruled in favor of the state but new Gov. Mike Braun sided against the health agency, issuing an executive order.

Abortion providers filing the terminated pregnancy reports include information that could potentially identify a patient, the doctors argue in the new suit, including: age, county and state of residence, marital status, race and ethnicity, and the circumstances of their abortion.

Bernard was penalized by the state’s medical licensing board in 2023 after she shared a patient’s age and state of residence with a reporter, which was reverse engineered to identify the 10-year-old rape survivor from Ohio.

The near-total abortion ban allows exceptions for rape or incest, a fatal fetal anomaly or if the pregnancy risks the health of the mother.

The names of the doctors themselves are also on the reports.

Bernard and Rouse are represented by attorneys from the Lawyering Project.

“Disclosing abortion patients’ personal health information to anti-abortion vigilantes puts the safety of both patients and doctors at-risk,” said Stephanie Toti, the organization’s executive director, in a release.  “We are hopeful that the court will stop IDOH from following through on its plans to release information that is otherwise protected by both federal and state law.”