The proposed changes to the final privacy rule suggest a disturbing reduction in an individual's ability to exercise a right to healthcare privacy

The author contends that, in eliminating HIPAA's mandatory consent requirement, which is the initial step in the patient's Patient Consent exercise of the right to health information privacy, DHHS has turned its back on privacy protection. She posits that the proposed change is the result of a disturbing focus on an elimination of the industry's administrative burdens, rather than on the protection of patient healthcare information. The article concludes that elimination of the consent requirement is a step backwards in the arena of personal privacy.     

The impact of medical technology on the pregnant woman's right to privacy

It has been suggested that the advance of science and technology in the West has changed both the relationship of man to nature and of man to man. With regard to human reproduction, science and technology in medicine may certainly change the relationship of man to nature and of man to man, but also the concept of what it means to be human. Efforts must be taken to guarantee the rights of all humans. The author explores developing reproductive medical technology to consider how it may change our concept of humanness and how that change may be accommodated, encouraged, or impeded by the relationship between the government and its pregnant citizens as defined by the US Constitution and the right to privacy. Sections discuss the Constitution at the beginning of life; sterilization and the right to procreate; contraception, abortion, and the right not to procreate; and surrogacy. The author also discusses constitutional issues when the interests of a pregnant woman conflict with those of the fetus in terms of fetal surgery, forced cesarean-section cases, and the fetal abuse case of Pamela Monson Stewart.