Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor is one of 18 far-right attorneys general who signed onto a letter opposing a federal rule that would make it harder for states to prosecute people for getting abortions, despite it being legal in Alaska.
The letter was penned by Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Finch and sent to the Biden administration on June 16, threatening a lawsuit over a proposed federal rule that expands HIPAA protections to people who get abortions in their state or cross state lines for the procedure. It would specifically bar health providers and insurers from providing information to state officials trying to investigate, sue or prosecute someone, a growing concern in the post-Roe world.
Finch’s letter argues that the Dobbs decision turns over the issue of abortions to states and that laws criminalizing people for obtaining or providing abortions should pierce HIPAA protections, allowing state investigators to force health care providers and insurance companies to disclose otherwise private medical information.
Asked if his signing onto the letter meant Alaska would be working to obtain such information from other states or provide such information to other states, Department of Law spokesperson Patty Sullivan replied with “No” and provided the following statement from AG Taylor:
“The letter speaks for itself,” he said. “While this rule would have no effect on Alaska because abortions are legal, the rule seeks to thwart other states that have made a different policy decision on abortions post the Dobbs v. Jackson decision.”
To be clear, some of those different policy decisions include harsh abortion bans with limited exemptions that a New York Times report found are rarely granted. That means people seeking abortions, including in cases of rape or severe health complications, must travel to other states to seek safe care.
Earlier this year, Idaho passed one of the harshest abortion bans in the country that would criminalize helping someone leave the state for an abortion in some cases.
Rose O’Hara-Jolley, the Alaska state director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, said Taylor’s support for the letter is “sickening and unacceptable” when it should be his job to uphold the rights of Alaskans, including their right to privacy.
“Abortion is safe, legal and confidential in Alaska regardless of what Treg Taylor says. We have seen the Supreme Court in the state of Alaska uphold our right to privacy and equality under the law time and time again when it comes to abortion access,” they said. “Frankly, he’s just throwing a temper tantrum. He doesn’t believe the right to privacy should apply to women and people who become pregnant, so just like a toddler, he’s signing his name to everything that says otherwise to spread misinformation and fear.”
In Alaska, the right to an abortion is covered by the Alaska constitution’s strong right to privacy. There’s been a long-running effort to change that by conservatives, including a recent campaign encouraging Alaska voters to call a constitutional convention. The Alaska Constitution calls for voters to be asked every 10 years whether the constitution should be opened for revisions, and Gov. Mike Dunleavy became the first sitting governor to support a convention openly.
But Dunleavy and other abortion opponents didn’t get what they hoped for in the 2022 election, where the constitutional convention question failed by a wider margin than it had when no major campaign or governor was supporting it. Still, at his State of the State address, Dunleavy announced his intentions to make Alaska the “most pro-life state in the nation.”
O’Hara-Jolley said Taylor’s letter should give Alaskans a good view of what it would be like if those constitutional protections were undone.
“(Taylor) signed his name to this, and other actions he’s done recently show us exactly who he is and what he plans to do. If he had the right, he would absolutely be turning people over to other states,” they said. “That’s what he just signed his name to, saying what he would do, so I feel comfortable saying he would.”
Mack Smith, the communications manager at Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, also added that despite the strong constitutional protections, actions like Taylor’s could be chilling on people seeking health care out of fear that the government might be peaking over their shoulders.
“Having people fear having open and honest conversations with their providers because they’re afraid the government is going to use that information against them is the worst-case scenario,” Smith said. “That is what the attorney general has signed his name to.”
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.
