Abortion in the US How will the Court ruling affect public health?
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New York (CNN Business) --
The Supreme Court's ruling on Friday to overturn Roe v.
Wade triggers a wave of new state laws affecting abortion rights and reinforcing existing laws that ban and, in some cases, criminalize the procedure.
Among the potentially far-reaching implications of the decision are concerns about the potential use of personal data to punish people seeking information or accessing abortion services online.
In some of the most restrictive states, digital rights experts warn that people's search histories, location data, messages and other digital information could be used by law enforcement investigating or prosecuting cases related to the abortion.
Supreme Court ruling on abortion could open doors to reconsider equal marriage rights and contraceptives
On Friday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v.
Wade, the 50-year ruling that guaranteed a person's constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy before viability (usually around 24 weeks).
A draft of the opinion was leaked in May.
Overturning the landmark 1973 court ruling is expected to transform the reproductive health landscape in the United States, leaving abortion policy in the hands of individual states and paving the way for more than 20 states to pass new laws restricting abortions.
Even before the ruling, concerns had begun to surface about the digital privacy implications of abortion restrictions amid a move from Republican-controlled states including Georgia, Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma.
America is very different today than it was in the pre-Roe era.
Due to the pervasiveness of the internet and mobile technology, people today are sharing vast amounts of data about themselves whether they realize it or not, opening the door to significant surveillance.
The possibility of a complex patchwork of state laws following the reversal of Roe v.
Wade raises a host of new questions about the technology Americans use every day to make health decisions and how it might be used to enforce those laws, and could create confusion about what online behavior is and isn't allowed.
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For example, in states that make it a crime to help a person seeking an abortion, data from women's pregnancy or period tracking apps could end up being cited as evidence against the person who helped them, said Danielle Citron, Law professor at the University of Virginia and author of the forthcoming book “The Fight for Privacy”.
"Let's say you have your period, you stopped it, and then it came back again in no time," Citron said.
"It's [potential] evidence of your own criminality, or your doctor's criminality."
The 16 states where the right to abortion would be protected after the Roe v.
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Digital rights and reproductive freedoms groups are now warning people in states that criminalize access to abortion to safeguard their digital footprints when searching for abortion information and resources online and sharing advice on how to do so.
“We live in a much more policed culture than we did in 1972 and before, so in a future where abortion rights are limited or there is no federal right, people will be at risk of exercising their bodily autonomy,” said Elisabeth Smith, Director of State Policy and Advocacy of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
“The consequences of those decisions are likely to fall more heavily on Blacks, Browns and Indigenous people of color.”
A growing number of US lawmakers have raised concerns about the potential misuse of advertising data to prosecute people seeking abortions.
In May, dozens of Democratic congressmen wrote to Google saying the company's practice of collecting and storing vast amounts of geolocation data from cellphones "will allow it to become a tool for far-right extremists seeking to crack down on against people seeking reproductive health care.”
And on June 24, the same day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v.
Wade, another group of US lawmakers wrote to the Federal Trade Commission saying Apple and Google should face an investigation by the agency into advertising practices they said could end up harming people seeking abortions.
“Information brokers are already selling, licensing and sharing the location information of people visiting abortion providers with anyone with a credit card.
Prosecutors in states where abortion becomes illegal will soon be able to obtain warrants for information on the location of anyone who has visited an abortion provider," wrote the group, which included Senators Ron Wyden, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Rep. Sara Jacobs.
"The FTC should investigate the role of Apple and Google in transforming online advertising into an intense surveillance system that incentivizes and facilitates the unrestricted collection and ongoing sale of Americans' personal data."
Self-managed abortions and online pharmacies
The heartbreaking story of a Georgia legislator's abortion 4:47
Much has also changed in the reproductive health care landscape since Roe v.
Wade in 1973. Self-managed abortions and online pharmacies that provide abortion medications are increasingly affordable options, especially for low-income people or those in rural areas or states that restrict access to in-person abortion services .
The US Food and Drug Administration in December removed a requirement for patients seeking abortion drugs to pick them up in person, instead allowing pills to be sent by mail.
Although several states, including Texas, prohibit receiving medication abortions via telehealth, that doesn't necessarily stop pharmacies and online services in other countries, such as Europe-based Aid Access, from mailing medications to people. in those states.
Web traffic to the Plan C online abortion resource site, which offers information on how to find abortion medications and how to use them, jumped from 500 people a day to 25,000 a day immediately after Texas banned most abortions after for six weeks in September, before leveling off at around 2,500 a day, according to Elisa Wells, co-founder and co-director of Plan C.
"Most people go directly to our 'Find Abortion Pills' directory that we have," Wells told CNN Business.
"Disproportionately, these people come from states that have laws on the books that restrict access."
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Several online behaviors could become part of investigations and court proceedings in states where helping provide access to abortions is criminalized, including internet searches, location history, call and text logs, emails and financial records, according to Cynthia Conti-Cook, a civil rights activist.
lawyer and technological member of the Ford Foundation.
Any part of a person's fingerprint is fair game once the device is in the possession of law enforcement, she said.
"As long as abortion and conduct related to seeking abortion is what is criminalized, all of that information can be totally fair game," Conti-Cook told CNN Business.
He added that law enforcement has the forensic tools at their disposal to see virtually everything a person does on their device, but only once the device is in their possession.
Unless voluntarily surrendered, a phone and all of its data cannot normally be accessed without a search warrant.
Several state laws governing abortion care raise novel questions about the role that Internet use might play by a person seeking an abortion.
"In a state like Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, if someone orders pills online, they're doing it outside the laws of that state," Smith said.
“Because they have banned telemedicine and more states are passing laws prohibiting the possession of abortion medications, there is a risk of criminalization when people do not follow the laws of their state.”
Some lawmakers have even introduced proposals that would effectively bar citizens from having out-of-state abortions.
Missouri State Rep. Elizabeth Coleman is pushing a provision that would allow citizens to sue anyone who "aides or abets" a Missouri resident to have an abortion, including out-of-state doctors, friends who help arrange transportation or even host a website that “encourages or facilitates the efforts” of Missourians to obtain elective abortions.
And other states could follow her example.
Law enforcement could also use so-called geofence commands, which ask Internet companies for a list of devices within a certain boundary at a certain time.
Such warrants are gaining popularity as a law enforcement tool for various suspected crimes: The number of geofencing warrants submitted to Google by US police departments increased from 982 in 2018 to 11,554 in 2020, according to the latest report. company transparency.
(For its part, Google says that, in some cases, it asks to provide less information or refuses to provide such information.)
In at least one case, search history data has already been used to prosecute people seeking information about abortion services.
In 2018, Latice Fisher was indicted by a Mississippi Grand Jury for second-degree murder after miscarrying at home.
While criminal charges against Fisher were eventually dropped, law enforcement pointed to purported Internet search results such as “buy abortion pills, mifeprisone online, misoprostol online” to make their case for her.
(Mifepristone and misoprostol are the two pills that women who perform self-managed abortions often take together.)
Activists Promote Digital Privacy Education
The lesson of ending abortion rights in the US 1:20
In anticipation of the passage of more restrictive laws, advocacy groups are promoting digital privacy education and sharing information on how to safely search for reproductive health services online.
The Digital Defense Fund created a guide for women on how to keep their digital footprints safe when searching for abortion information.
It includes tips like opting out of personalized ads on Google and social media sites to minimize tracking, turning off location sharing, and using privacy-focused browsers like DuckDuckGo or Firefox Focus that don't save search data, collect personal information or allow third-party trackers
When searching for abortion information, the guide also recommends using end-to-end encrypted messaging apps like Signal or WhatsApp to keep calls and messages private (these apps also offer scheduled auto-delete features for messages).
Unlike a phone company with access to SMS text messages, the developers of such apps cannot access the content of the encrypted messages and therefore cannot be forced by a court to share them.
Other privacy steps people seeking abortion information can take to protect their Internet browsing include using the Tor anonymous browsing service or virtual private networks (VPNs) and using incognito search windows, according to Digital Defense. Fund.
While it's nearly impossible to completely hide digital history, experts say such methods can help minimize risk and make it harder for law enforcement to seize the data.
CNN's Brian Fung contributed to this report.
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