14. Department of Health and Human Services · Notable
Withdraw the OCR HIPAA abortion privacy guidance
Printed page 497 14. Department of Health and Human Services
“OCR should withdraw its June 2022 guidance that purports to address patient privacy concerns following the Dobbs decision but is actually a politicized statement in favor of abortion and against Dobbs.”
What has happened
- Not started
OCR's June 2022 HIPAA guidance on disclosures of information relating to reproductive health care has not been withdrawn on any allowlisted record. The 2024 HIPAA Privacy Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy - a different instrument, a rule rather than the guidance - was vacated by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in June 2025, but that is a court order against the rule and not an OCR withdrawal of the guidance the Quote names. **The page was opened on 2026-09-03 and the negative now rests on three independent confirmations rather than on a 403.** (i) The guidance is live and unchanged, carrying its 2022 text intact including its opening premise — "Access to comprehensive reproductive health care services, including abortion care, is essential to individual health and well-being" — and its worked examples telling providers that reporting a suspected self-managed abortion to law enforcement "would be impermissible and constitute a breach of unsecured PHI". There is **no rescission banner**. (ii) The page's own stamp is "Content last reviewed June 27, 2025" — HHS touched it nine days after the *Purl* vacatur and left the guidance up. Its only banner concerns that separate 2024 Privacy Rule. (iii) OCR's blanket rescission and disavowal notice of 2026-01-21, which enumerates everything it reaches, has exactly four Deregulation Items — the July 2021 UVMMC letter, three November 2021 letters on 45 CFR 75.300, the December 2021 COVID vaccine equity guidance, and the August 2021 California Weldon withdrawal letter — and the June 2022 HIPAA reproductive-health guidance is not among them. The only reproductive-health instrument that has moved is the 2024 Privacy Rule, and a court moved that, not OCR.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Federal Register full text since 2025-01-20: “HIPAA” with abortion, seven documents, all Medicare and Medicaid payment rules plus the Unified Agenda; “reproductive health care privacy” 0 documents; “Privacy Rule To Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy” 0 documents. OCR published no rescission notice, unlike the pharmacy guidance (#1400) and the Church Amendments guidance.
- OCR’s active HIPAA rulemakings are RIN 0945-AA28 (timely access to protected health information) and RIN 0945-AA00 (coordinated care); neither touches the reproductive-health guidance.
- That page refused a plain request and opened when requested as a browser does. It was read in full on 2026-09-03, which settled the item in the negative. hhs.gov was never closed to us.
- The pairing with #1396 is the finding. The same OCR rescinded the March 2022 gender-affirming care guidance by signed letter within a month of EO 14187, and has left this one standing for twenty months. Recorded in both notes.
- Action
- withdraw
- Object
- OCR June 2022 HIPAA guidance on abortion
- ID
- 1401