Women and girls seeking abortions in New York City will no longer have to provide their date of birth, according to a new plan announced by the city Health Department on Friday.
The new plan is, in part, to “protect” minors who come from states where abortion is illegal to receive the procedure.
The city will no longer collect information about patients’ birthplaces or marital statuses in addition to birthdates.
The changes will go into effect next month.
The New York Daily News reports:
The move is a response to threats facing women from Republican-controlled states who seek abortions. It also comes as an acknowledgment of anxieties that an abortion ban could be implemented at the federal level if the country’s political leadership changes after the November elections.
The city, which has collected abortion data since 1949, has seen waves of out-of-staters coming to the city after the Supreme Court revoked the federal right to abortion, according to City Hall.
At least two states with total abortion bans, Tennessee and Oklahoma, also have bills under consideration that would criminalize helping minors have abortions out of state without parental consent, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights nonprofit.
New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan said the changes are to “keep people safe.”
“I mean safe not just in terms of the quality of care,” Vasan said, according to the Daily News report, “but really keeping people safe in terms of their safety from a very scary and shifting legal and policy environment that the Supreme Court put into motion, and that is in some real debate in an election year now.”
New York is so pro-abortion that city-run clinics offer free abortion pills to patients.
