Written by Allison Chapman, Civil Rights & Health Equity Project Fellow
Over the past nine months, lawyers across the country have fought tirelessly to protect people’s rights to gender-affirming healthcare, reproductive healthcare, and the privacy and security of their highly personal medical data. However, we can only fight using the tools provided to us through the law.
Now, a slate of three new laws protecting care is set to go before Governor Hochul – it is critical that they be signed into law.
Legal experts, healthcare providers, and advocates have worked with New York’s legislature to help craft laws that defend the rights of providers and recipients of legally protected healthcare in the state. Without these laws, personal health data, life-saving healthcare, and the legal and professional safety of healthcare providers could be at greater risk than even anticipated when the laws were originally drafted and passed. Until Gov. Hochul signs these timely laws, we cannot use these critical tools to protect the rights of New Yorkers.
Please join us in calling on her to sign these urgent protections today.
Protect Health Data (S929/A2141)
We are in a moment where the federal government and private entities with ill intent are collecting and purchasing your personal data, including private health data. This bill puts the control of personal health data back where it belongs: in the hands of the consumer. Further, this bill holds big tech companies accountable for mishandling personal healthcare information.
Shield Gender-Affirming Care Providers (S4914A/A5480B)
Transgender people and their healthcare providers are under relentless attack. Transgender rights is a rapidly changing legal landscape, and unintentional gaps in protection are at times left exposed. This bill seeks to fill one such gap by strengthening New York law to better protect sensitive health data against dubious subpoenas by malicious out-of-state government entities.
Promote Hospital Transparency (S3486/A3862)
Authoritarian governments use fear to maintain control and power. We can see this everywhere right now, from the firing of whistleblowers to politically motivated prosecutions. Many hospitals have also caved to the fear and removed information about reproductive and gender affirming healthcare from their websites and directories. This bill would place the power of information back in the hands of the consumers by requiring local hospitals to disclose if they provide the reproductive or gender-affirming healthcare they need.
At a time when the threat to care and privacy has never been so great, the Governor must sign these bills into law. Federal protections for healthcare are falling apart.
The federal government has already rescinded guidance on emergency abortion under EMTALA, leaving hospitals unsure if they can legally treat pregnant patients in crisis. The Trump administration’s new CMS rules will end baseline coverage for gender-affirming care in 2026 marketplace plans. CMS is also expanding data-sharing requirements for insurers and providers all without ensuring adequate patient privacy protections.
Gov. Hochul must rise to the occasion and sign these bills.
Lawyers must be equipped with the tools necessary to protect reproductive rights, gender affirming care, and personal health data. If Gov. Hochul continues to delay or refuses to act, patients will be left in the dark about where they can safely get care, clinicians will face greater legal risk and may stop providing essential services, and health data will become a liability.