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American Morning

Women's Privacy

Aired May 01, 2003 - 09:51   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The Supreme Court this week effectively cleared the way for South Carolina to begin collecting names, addresses and other personal information about women seeking abortions. It's the only state to do this without adhering to strict confidentiality rules. So what's behind the practice, and does it violate the privacy of women? Our legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin is here to object.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I do object.

COSTELLO: Why?

TOOBIN: Well, this is a special rule made only for abortion providers, and obviously people have very different views about whether abortion is appropriate, should be legal. But it's legal now. I mean, Roe V. Wade remains the law of land, and it's a legal practice for women to get abortions.

And what South Carolina have done is they have created a separate set of rules that allow allows state regulators to go in, gets the name, get addresses, get personal information about women seeking abortions, and that information is not...

COSTELLO: Before they had the surgical procedure.

TOOBIN: Well, after.

COSTELLO: After, OK.

TOOBIN: After, after, but in a way that people getting other medical procedures, it's different. And that information can be publicly disclosed, it can go to the press, and it really seems to me an outrageous imposition on people's privacy.

COSTELLO: So why does the state of South Carolina want to do this?

TOOBIN: Well, there are two reasons. There's the stated reason and why a lot of abortion supporters really think it's the real reason. The stated reason is, it's an effort to regulate and protect the women getting abortions. It's -- the idea is they are seeking this information so that they can keep track of the safety procedures in these abortion clinics. That's the stated reason.

What a lot of abortion supporters say, what pro-choice forces say, is that just a pretense, what they are doing is trying to intimidate women out of getting abortions by this risking public exposure, and frankly, that explanation makes sense to me.

COSTELLO: And of course the pro-choice movement was fighting this, yet the U.S. Supreme Court shows not hear the case -- why?

TOOBIN: The Supreme Court never really says when they decline to hear a case. They usually never say, and they didn't say in this case, and you cane be sure. They know what a traumatic issue abortion is for them. Every time they take an abortion case, it becomes the focus of their term. They take relatively few of them. This doesn't deal specifically with the legality of abortions, so they probably just felt it was safer to duck the issue, but women in South Carolina may pay the price.

COSTELLO: And might this open up a whole other avenue to look into any kind of medical record that you might have?

TOOBIN: Well, that's why this issue really isn't so much about abortion as it is about privacy, which is something everyone's concerned about, and I think what you will certainly see is now that this practice has the good housekeeping seal of approval from the Supreme Court, it will probably spread to other states, and it may well spread to other medical procedures, and that would be a loss for everyone.

COSTELLO: Jeffrey Toobin, thanks.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired May 1, 2003 - 09:51   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: The Supreme Court this week effectively cleared the way for South Carolina to begin collecting names, addresses and other personal information about women seeking abortions. It's the only state to do this without adhering to strict confidentiality rules. So what's behind the practice, and does it violate the privacy of women? Our legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin is here to object.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I do object.

COSTELLO: Why?

TOOBIN: Well, this is a special rule made only for abortion providers, and obviously people have very different views about whether abortion is appropriate, should be legal. But it's legal now. I mean, Roe V. Wade remains the law of land, and it's a legal practice for women to get abortions.

And what South Carolina have done is they have created a separate set of rules that allow allows state regulators to go in, gets the name, get addresses, get personal information about women seeking abortions, and that information is not...

COSTELLO: Before they had the surgical procedure.

TOOBIN: Well, after.

COSTELLO: After, OK.

TOOBIN: After, after, but in a way that people getting other medical procedures, it's different. And that information can be publicly disclosed, it can go to the press, and it really seems to me an outrageous imposition on people's privacy.

COSTELLO: So why does the state of South Carolina want to do this?

TOOBIN: Well, there are two reasons. There's the stated reason and why a lot of abortion supporters really think it's the real reason. The stated reason is, it's an effort to regulate and protect the women getting abortions. It's -- the idea is they are seeking this information so that they can keep track of the safety procedures in these abortion clinics. That's the stated reason.

What a lot of abortion supporters say, what pro-choice forces say, is that just a pretense, what they are doing is trying to intimidate women out of getting abortions by this risking public exposure, and frankly, that explanation makes sense to me.

COSTELLO: And of course the pro-choice movement was fighting this, yet the U.S. Supreme Court shows not hear the case -- why?

TOOBIN: The Supreme Court never really says when they decline to hear a case. They usually never say, and they didn't say in this case, and you cane be sure. They know what a traumatic issue abortion is for them. Every time they take an abortion case, it becomes the focus of their term. They take relatively few of them. This doesn't deal specifically with the legality of abortions, so they probably just felt it was safer to duck the issue, but women in South Carolina may pay the price.

COSTELLO: And might this open up a whole other avenue to look into any kind of medical record that you might have?

TOOBIN: Well, that's why this issue really isn't so much about abortion as it is about privacy, which is something everyone's concerned about, and I think what you will certainly see is now that this practice has the good housekeeping seal of approval from the Supreme Court, it will probably spread to other states, and it may well spread to other medical procedures, and that would be a loss for everyone.

COSTELLO: Jeffrey Toobin, thanks.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com