From today's Washington Post, "U.S. Demands More Abortion Records":

The Justice Department has expanded its demands for private medical records of abortion patients, issuing subpoenas this week for hundreds of files from six Planned Parenthood affiliates, including the one serving metropolitan Washington, according to officials and court records.

The demand for records from Planned Parenthood affiliates in Washington, New York City, Los Angeles, San Diego, Pennsylvania, and Kansas and mid-Missouri follows similar demands in December for abortion records held by five hospital centers in the Northeast and Midwest. The hospitals have resisted those requests.

The disputes come as part of a series of lawsuits filed by Planned Parenthood and others seeking to overturn the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, which was signed into law last fall but has been sharply limited by court injunctions since then. Lawsuits filed in New York, Nebraska and San Francisco challenge the constitutionality of the ban, which covers a type of abortion known as "intact dilation and extraction," in which the fetus is partially delivered.

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and Justice Department lawyers say the subpoenas are necessary in order to determine the veracity of doctors' claims that the type of abortion covered by the ban has been medically necessary as the plaintiffs claim.

"We sought from the judge authority to get medical records to find out whether indeed the allegation by the plaintiffs that it's medically necessary is really a fact," Ashcroft told reporters on Feb. 12.