* Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s op-ed in the Sun-Times…

A recent letter, sent under the signature of 19 Republican state attorneys general, demands that the Biden administration allow states with abortion bans to obtain the private medical records of patients seeking legal health care in other states.

In sending this letter, they have made their priorities clear: These attorneys general will use their resources to intimidate women across state lines and weaponize patients’ private health care information against them because they sought legal, and often life-saving, medical care. […]

We know these attempts to pry into patient privacy likely won’t stop at abortion. Access to essential health care like contraceptives, HIV treatment and gender-affirming care may also be at stake. The letter from the 19 Republican attorneys general cites state bans on gender-affirming care as among the reasons the signatories do not want patients’ records to be private. These are attacks on very personal decisions about when and how to build your family and how to live authentically as your true self.

From the letter sent by attorneys general in Mississippi, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Utah…

As described above, the proposed rule would bar certain disclosures of PHI [protected health information] to state or local agencies conducting a “criminal, civil, or administrative investigation or proceeding … in connection with” “reproductive health care.” 88 Fed. Reg. at 23552. The proposed rule would thus curtail the ability of state officials to obtain evidence of potential violations of state laws—even when requested under “a court order or other type of legal process.” The proposed rule has deep flaws and should be withdrawn.

* Iowa…

The Iowa Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds’ appeal of a lower court order blocking the state’s ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, which Reynolds signed into law this month.

Republican legislators passed the bill this month in a special legislative session, and Reynolds signed it at the Family Leadership Summit, a major gathering of social conservatives that drew top GOP presidential candidates to Iowa.

“Everyone understands that a heartbeat signifies life, and we understand that when it falls silent, something precious has been lost,” Reynolds said moments before she signed the bill into law.

The six-week ban went into effect as soon as she signed it, but it was halted days later, when a Polk County judge temporarily blocked the law following a legal challenge from Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, the Emma Goldman Clinic and the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa. For now, abortion remains legal in Iowa until the 20th week of pregnancy.

* Tennessee…

This week, a group of teachers filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate Tennessee’s law limiting the teaching of race and gender. The statute, signed by Republican Gov. Bill Lee in 2021, is absurdly vague: It prohibits pedagogy that includes allegedly divisive concepts without defining what that means, leaving teachers fearful that even neutral mentions of such concepts could violate the law.

The lawsuit claims that the Tennessee law violates the 14th Amendment, which requires laws to issue clear, explicit commands. Because of the law’s fuzziness, teachers are left feeling like potential outlaws whenever they voice an idea that a parent might deem unacceptable. […]

The concepts that teachers must not “include” or “promote” in K-12 education are also preposterously vague. Among them are the notion that an individual should feel “discomfort” or “guilt” solely due to her race and the idea that one race is superior to another. The promotion of “division,” whatever that means, is also banned.

Defenders of the law note that it offers an exception for “impartial” discussion of the historical oppression of one group by another and of other “controversial” historical facts. This, they argue, will prevent the whitewashing of history.

* More from Tennessee…

Vanderbilt University Medical Center is being sued by its transgender clinic patients, who accuse the hospital of violating their privacy by turning their records over to Tennessee’s attorney general.

Two patients sued Monday in Nashville Chancery Court, saying they were among more than 100 people whose records were sent by Vanderbilt to Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti. His office has said it is examining medical billing in a “run of the mill” fraud investigation that isn’t directed at patients or their families. Vanderbilt has said it was required by law to comply.

The patients say Vanderbilt was aware that Tennessee authorities are hostile toward the rights of transgender people, and should have removed their personally identifying information before turning over the records. […]

The attorney general’s office has said the hospital has been providing records of its gender-related treatment billing since December 2022, and that the records have been kept confidential. Elizabeth Lane Johnson, an attorney general’s office spokesperson, noted Tuesday that the office isn’t a party to the lawsuit, and directed questions to Vanderbilt.

* Missouri…

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, doctors providing obstetrics and gynecological care felt the decision’s effects immediately — especially in Missouri, the nation’s first state to implement a near-total ban on abortion. […]

Another consequence of Missouri’s abortion ban is that fewer doctors are coming to Missouri to complete their OB-GYN residencies, Eisenberg and his colleague, Dr. Jeannie Kelly, told St. Louis on the Air.

“We definitely have seen the ramifications of this law impact who comes here for training,” said Kelly. “Applicants come in, telling us, ‘You are the only program we’ve applied to, in a state where abortion is banned, because we know that this is a facility that still abides by all of the training guidelines and provides training for that care in the state of Illinois when needed.’” […]

“We are one of the top 10 OB-GYN residency training programs in the country,” he said. “Every year that I have been a faculty member, since 2009, we have seen an increasing number of applicants — until the fall of 2022, when we saw a 10% decrease.”

* Florida…

Florida’s transgender teens face the longest median travel time to access gender-affirming health care, according to a new study from the Journal of the American Medical Association.

That puts up a massive barrier to health care that every major medical association agrees is medically necessary and in certain cases life-saving.

“Access to developmentally appropriate medical and social services for transgender youths is associated with mental health benefits and decreased suicidality,” the study says.

Florida’s median drive time of nearly nine hours was the highest of any state examined in the study.

* Mississippi…

Mississippi will have to pay more than $400,000 in attorneys’ fees after the attorney general’s office spent years defending a sodomy law that criminalizes oral and anal sex.

The law in question — Section 97-29-59 — was deemed unconstitutional in 2003 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case Lawrence v. Texas that private sexual conduct was constitutionally protected.

But Mississippi kept its sodomy law on the books, opening the door for a 2016 legal challenge that resulted in the expensive attorneys’ fees.

The AGs office, under both Democrat Jim Hood and Republican Lynn Fitch, fought the class action lawsuit by the Center for Constitutional Rights and other advocacy legal organizations, which sued on behalf of five Mississippians who were required to register as sex offenders for sodomy convictions. […]

Yet Mississippi’s “unnatural intercourse” law is still law. A state representative introduced a bill earlier this year to repeal it, but it received no attention and died in committee. And according to an attorney who worked on the lawsuit, there are still 14 people on the Mississippi Sex Offender Registry who were solely convicted under that law.

* Disney vs DeSantis…

Disney rejected Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ recent request for immunity from their legal feud Wednesday, with the media conglomerate criticizing the governor and presidential candidate for evading “responsibility for his actions.”

It’s the latest salvo in a legal battle that’s been ongoing since April when the theme park giant filed a suit against the governor in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida. The broader battle began the year before, when Disney spoke out against the Parental Rights in Education Act, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics, which restricts instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in schools.

“The Governor seeks to evade responsibility for his actions on a narrower ground, asserting that a governor cannot be held officially liable for implementing, administering, and enforcing state laws that punish residents for political statements violating a state-prescribed speech code,” company attorneys wrote in a legal filing Wednesday.

DeSantis and his GOP legislative allies responded with actions Disney says were retaliatory and a violation of its free speech rights, such as the governor’s takeover of the company’s special taxing district, previously called the Reedy Creek Improvement District.