Should Medical Records Be Private From the Government?

[barman]

Should your personal medical records be accessible by governments?

The Ashcroft Justice Dept says NO. What do you say?

Currently, the DOJ is trying to get records from women in California who have had abortions.

The DOJ is hoping to gather this info so that they can possibly change the laws which currently protect a woman's privacy. If successful, the law would be changed and anyone associated with an abortion could be charged as a murderer. In many states, including my own, murder of a child would lead to execution by the state. In this case, that would mean executing the mother, the doctor, any staff involved, and also anyone that helped finance the procedure.



Additionally a number of states are considering the establishment of pharmacuetical databases which would track all of your pharmacuetical transactions and make them available to law enforcement. In such a case, if a DEA officer or prosecutor decides you are taking too many drugs, you can be prosecuted and caged for long sentences.

Fortunately, medical records are currently none of the government's business.

Are you comfortable with the DOJ's attempts to break this privacy barrier?

 

[bblight]

To be perfectly honest about this, I have a serious problem with government intrusiveness; at the same time, the extremes to which privacy rights have been taken tend to protect the extreme elements while leaving the vast majority vulnerable to crime and disease.

A good example of this problem occurs with major transmittable diseases such as HIV, or TB, where the person with the disease interacts with others, possibly passing on their disease to those others. This should be reported, and criminal action should be taken in those cases where an individual kept quiet while putting others at serious risk.

In my opinion some abortions such as partial birth abortions are criminal and should be halted immediately, but overall, abortions and those that give and get them should be left alone - including their medical records.