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Attorney general, advocates and health officials seek broader 'shield law' protections for abortion and gender-affirming care
Summary
State Attorney General's office, health department and providers told the Joint Committee the 2022 shield law should be strengthened to protect patient data, providers and families from out-of-state investigations and to clarify enforcement authority as federal and other states' actions escalate.
State officials, the attorney general's office, health practitioners and patient advocates asked the Joint Committee on the Judiciary to report favorably on S.2522, legislation that would expand the 2022 shield law protections for reproductive and gender-affirming care.
Lede: Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s staff and the Department of Public Health described specific changes that would block out-of-state civil and criminal enforcement, limit cross-border access to protected medical and prescription data, and create explicit state enforcement powers.
Nut graf: Witnesses told the committee that hostile federal guidance and recent out-of-state litigation targeting provider names and prescription data create real risks for patients and clinicians. They said statutory clarifications would authorize state enforcement, strengthen privacy protections for electronic health records and the prescription monitoring program (PMP), and protect families and clinicians from disciplinary or civil exposure arising from other states’ actions.
Key points from testimony: Attorney Allison Slater and Amanda Hainsworth from the attorney general’s office said the proposed bill would (1) extend non-cooperation rules to all state or local agencies; (2) create explicit civil enforcement authority for the attorney general; and (3) shield health data connected to legally-protected care. Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Robbie Goldstein told the committee the Commonwealth must protect patient and provider safety and cited plans to limit what is entered or disclosed via the statewide prescription monitoring program.
Provider and advocacy concerns: Several medical and advocacy organizations, including Fenway Health, GLAAD and Planned Parenthood affiliates, urged the committee to add protections for providers’ names on prescriptions and to permit practice-group labels rather than individual prescriber names on mailed prescriptions — a step they said would help prevent out-of-state civil or criminal targeting of individual clinicians. Witnesses noted that New York and Washington state have adopted similar practice-name labeling rules.
Federal context: Several witnesses cited changing federal enforcement signals around EMTALA (the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act) and recent federal actions that they said reduced federal enforcement certainty. Witnesses urged state-level EMTALA-style protections to ensure hospitals will provide emergency care if federal enforcement wanes.
No committee action was taken at the hearing; sponsors and state witnesses offered to provide follow-up written language and technical briefings on how the PMP and electronic medical record protections would be implemented.
