Arizona governor urges the state to stop collecting abortion data, citing patient privacy
Associated PressKatie Hobbs is calling for legislators to repeal the state law that requires an annual abortion report, saying that it infringes on patients’ privacy, which echoes other Democratic officials’ push to reduce or eliminate such requirements. “It’s really worth thinking carefully about the risk and the benefit of collecting data in this new environment,” said Isaac Maddow-Zimet, a researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights and does its own voluntary surveys of abortion providers. For years, four states with generally expansive abortion rights laws have skipped participating in the federal government’s roundup of state data. Rachel Rebouche, dean of the Temple University Beasley School of Law and an abortion law scholar, said states don’t need to know personal information such as the name and address of people who receive abortions. And while it’s useful to report basic information about abortion, she said, there are risks for abortion rights advocates, particularly in the reports from states with bans where the data mostly shows how often abortions are provided through exceptions.