Yes, Missouri’s top health official testified in a state hearing that his department was using a spreadsheet to track periods of thousands of patients at Planned Parenthood.
To make matters worse this invasion of privacy could be exploited in almost every state. Patients are almost always asked about their last menstrual cycle and health officials are allowed to keep that information on record. In fact, 46 states REQUIRE this information be kept by health officials but the information is supposed to remain confidential.
This spreadsheet in Missouri was created when the St. Louis Planned Parenthood was having its annual inspection from the state health inspector. The health inspector has access to the medical records during this visit and this is when the spreadsheet was secretly formed. The spreadsheet also included patients’ medical identification numbers, dates of medical procedures, and gestational ages of fetuses.
This information was then used in an effort to shut the clinic down. The spreadsheet was used to cherry-pick data, though officials say they did it for patient’s safety over the possibility of “failed abortions.” There were more than 30,000 patients served in the year data was pulled with a total of 4,782 abortions performed. From that information they gathered, they used FOUR PATIENTS who had what the state is calling “failed abortions,” though they just had to return to Planned Parenthood more than once for the procedure. They are arguing that this proves the clinic is unsafe and should be shut down, closing the last legal abortion provider in the state.
Funny how the state will invade your privacy like that and then justify it by saying they’re doing it for our own safety and then further throw it in your face by trying to use that information to shut down the medical care you were actively utilizing.