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Senate passes bill strengthening protections for reproductive and gender-affirming care, limits some data sharing
Summary
The Senate passed S.2538—an expansion of the 2022 Shield Act—adding state-level protections including clarified emergency care rules, limits on data sharing and prescription monitoring exclusions for reproductive and gender-affirming care.
The Massachusetts Senate on a recorded vote passed An Act Strengthening Health Care Protections in the Commonwealth (Senate No. 2538), a bill that expands legal protections for providers and patients of reproductive and gender-affirming care and places new limits on certain health-data sharing.
The bill, ordered to a third reading and then passed to be engrossed after roll call (final recorded tally: 37 ayes, 3 nays), was sponsored and described on the floor by Senator Cindy F. Friedman. Friedman said the measure builds on the 2022 Shield Act and was drafted with input from the Attorney General’s office, the Department of Public Health, the ACLU of Massachusetts, Planned Parenthood, reproductive equity advocates and LGBTQ legal defenders.
Friedman and supporters told the Senate the bill has several components intended to shield Massachusetts providers and patients from out-of-state and federal investigations and private data queries: - Limits on information sharing by insurers, electronic health record managers and other entities responding to out-of-state or federal investigation requests, and…
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