Under a bill the California Legislature may soon approve, medical providers and affiliated businesses could face hefty state fines if they comply with a federal subpoena seeking information about abortion.
Assembly Bill 1930 says that any medical provider or business served with any civil, criminal or regulatory inquiry, investigation, subpoena or summons seeking "legally protected health care activity shall not comply" unless the provider has notified the California attorney general, patients and providers.
But delaying responding to the feds could put them at risk of violating federal law, and independent constitutional scholars say the pending law might not survive a legal challenge.
The bill is reportedly in response to efforts the Trump administration and conservative states have undertaken to block or criminalize abortion services and other mutilative procedures.
"What the state is trying to do is basically squeeze or put a lot of pressure on the medical providers because they can be in serious trouble if they are not complying with a federal subpoena," notes Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life.
She says California has not always been forthcoming with information about abortion.
Bureaucrats and politicians frame it as a matter of privacy and freedom, but pro-lifers prioritize the safety of women and babies.
"We know that there are a lot of women in the country who have suffered from dangerous after-effects or complications of the abortion pill, and yet there are states who are protecting the abortion provider, the abortionists," Tobias laments. "California certainly fits into that category."
"To them, protecting abortion providers is much more important than helping a woman get some treatment or legal remedy when the abortion goes bad," she summarizes.
The measure's author, Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (D), says the impetus for the bill, in part, was a federal subpoena from the Trump administration to Children's Hospital Los Angeles seeking medical records for youth transgender patients.
Lawmakers briefly discussed AB 1930 at their first legislative hearing earlier this month before approving it in a party-line vote.
Ahead of its hearing in the Assembly Public Safety Committee on Tuesday Tobias recommends people talk to their state legislators as well as the attorney general.
