Judge Blocks Cities From Defending HHS Abortion Privacy Rule

A federal judge in Texas shot down a request from two liberal cities and a physician group to defend a Biden administration abortion rule in a lawsuit should the Trump administration drop out of the case.

Doctors for America and the cities of Madison, Wis., and Columbus, Ohio, “fail to demonstrate a protectable interest and the inadequacy of current parties,” Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk wrote in his Tuesday order denying the motion to intervene.

DFA and the cities were trying to intervene in Carmen Purl’s US District Court for the Northern District of Texas lawsuit against the US Department of Health and Human Services over a 2024 rule applying Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) privacy protections to abortion and other reproductive services’ records.

The HHS has “the same objective as the Proposed Intervenors: uphold the 2024 Rule,” wrote Kacsmaryk. Kacsmaryk also is presiding over a lawsuit over access to the abortion drug mifepristone that previously wound its way to the US Supreme Court.

And while the cities and Doctors for America “argue that the change in presidential administration raises the possibility that the 2024 Rule will no longer be adequately defended,” Kacsmaryk said, they “point to nothing conclusive enough” to warrant intervention.

The order comes as the physician group and the cities try to wade into other lawsuits brought by states against the HHS over the HIPAA abortion rule.

Purl had previously persuaded Kacsmaryk to block the HHS from enforcing the rule against her.

In Tuesday’s order, Kacsmaryk said the cities and DFA could appear as amici, noting that while they “cannot satisfy the intervention standards, they can provide arguments and insights that current parties may not.”

The case is Purl v. Dep’t of Health and Human Services, N.D. Tex., No. 2:24-cv-00228, 4/15/25.