CARNAL NATION

Have the scary cupcakes failed to discourage you from going down to the clinic and getting that oh-so-fashionable abortion you've been thinking about? Maybe this will: as of November 1, if you're a woman getting an abortion in Oklahoma, you'll be required to answer over 30 personal questions about your  pregnancy, reasons for getting an abortion, and demographics. That information will then be posted on a state-run website for all the world to see. Information that women will be required to provide includes when the abortion was performed, the woman's age, marital status, race, educational level, and number of previous live births, miscarriages, and abortions. Women will not be required to reveal their names, but as many critics have already pointed out, that hardly makes the information anonymous, especially in the sparsely-populated rural areas that make up much of Oklahoma.

The idea that gathering this information and making it public has any purpose other than intimidating women from exercising their right to choose is nothing short of ludicrous. Oklahoma conservatives may not be able to ban abortion outright, but they can make it as difficult and humiliating as possible. Or so they think. As others have pointed out, this scheme may very well be blatantly illegal under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which governs the privacy of medical records. The main question would be whether the Oklahoma Department of State would qualify as a "covered entity" which is required to adhere to HIPAA's privacy standards. Many state agencies, such as child welfare offices, are not covered by HIPAA's requirements. However, any doctor or hospital turning the information over to the state would certainly be a covered entity. In any case, the fact that this comes from the same people who think that public health care is a step towards government invasion into our private lives casts a grim irony over the entire story.