Operation Oopsie

Operation Rescue, an anti-choice group, is about to have some major problems.  Some shady person has stolen a bunch of medical records.  And not just any old medical records, but the records of women who visited a clinic in Kansas that yes, DUM DUM DUM….performs abortions.  Troy Newman, the president of Operation Rescue, received the records from last month, from an unidentified person, who Newman idiotically repeats that the man insisted the records were obtained legally.

Except that they weren’t.  They couldn’t have been.  Medical records are not given out to anyone. If Troy Newman’s buddy “obtained” those records, they are ill-gotten gains, to say the least.  It is against federal HIPAA regulations to have those files in his hand without a properly executed Release of Information form.  Which form he obviously does not have, which form the unnamed Newman pal obviously did not have.  Actually, he would have needed dozens of forms, one for each damn patient. 

So.  Obviously this is some illegal AND immoral shit going on.  Newman says some stupid crap about the files showing illegal shit like covering up child abuse, or that the files were improperly disposed of.  Riiiiiight.  I’ll go ahead and wait on the LEGAL proof of that, if it’s all the same to Newman's dumb ass.  An attorney for the clinic called the FBI after someone broke into their dumpster last month. So someone’s obviously looking for something, but they wouldn’t have found April’s medical records in the trash.  Duh.  Medical records are kept for about a decade, and then they are disposed of—by shredding them.  So April’s records wouldn’t have been in the trash.  And if April’s records from over ten years ago were in the trash, they would have been shredded.  Further, it’s unlikely the clinic, with all the anti-woman crazies like Operation Rescue out there, would even put the records in the clinic’s dumpster.  Right alongside the aborted fetuses, amirite?   

I’m super interested in how this turns out, even if it turns out Newman’s insider only got him sign-in sheets or something.  Hopefully a whole bunch of people will be in some deep shit over this.  Which is too bad, because it takes away from their time helping women.  HA!