As the shockwaves from the bombshell publication of a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade continue to reverberate, questions and fears about our digital privacy and what comes next abound. To be clear: Right now, abortion is still legal in this country. But according to the Guttmacher Institute, half the states are certain or likely to ban abortion if the court overturns Roe, and anti-abortion extremists are already pushing for a nationwide ban as soon as they get the chance. All of these roads lead to the same destination: the criminalization of people seeking reproductive health care, and of doctors and nurses who seek to provide it. If and when that does happen, our digital privacy will matter more than ever.

The lack of strong digital privacy protections has profound implications in the face of expanded criminalization of reproductive health care. In light of these breathtaking and authoritarian attacks on bodily autonomy, we must fight with new urgency to ensure that people maintain control over their personal information. If we fail, the repressive surveillance techniques and powers that police and prosecutors have for decades used to wage the racist wars on drugs and terrorism will be marshaled to track, catalogue, and criminalize pregnant people and those seeking basic information about reproductive health issues, putting tens of millions of people at risk of police harassment and worse.

Laws that criminalize reproductive health are already being used by police and prosecutors to surveil, penalize, and control people who are disproportionately Black and Brown. According to the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, the past 15 years have seen a shocking spike in arrests and prosecutions for crimes related to stillbirths, miscarriages, and alleged drug and alcohol use during pregnancy. Of the 1,600 people prosecuted for these offenses since the Roe decision in 1973, 1,200 were charged after 2006, and those targeted were disproportionately Black and Indigenous women. And in March, a Texas district attorney and sheriff conspired to indict and arrest a 26-year-old woman and charge her with murder, after the woman self-managed her abortion. In 2017, an online search for the abortion medication misoprostol was used to charge one woman with second-degree murder. In 2015, a series of text messages with a friend about getting an abortion helped convict another of feticide and child neglect.

Expanded criminalization of abortion will become an increasingly attractive target for prosecutors and police, which is why we must be prepared to digitally defend ourselves against corporate and government surveillance. We also must redouble our efforts to push states to take real action to protect our digital privacy. Some states have passed significant law reform in this area already.

Over the past 20 years, digital technologies have rapidly advanced, changing the way we communicate, seek and share information, travel, work, play, document and track our own health metrics, find love, and more. Billion-dollar industries have taken shape during this period, working behind the scenes to create, share, trade, and sell extremely sensitive data about hundreds of millions of people, buoyed by leaps in computing power and the declining cost of data storage.

Police and prosecutors piggyback on all of this corporate surveillance in what some have called a “public-private surveillance partnership.” In many cases, the government can obtain extremely detailed information from corporations about people’s finances, internet use, and communications without ever going to a judge, and without a shred of evidence to show someone is involved in criminal activity. When cops are armed with court orders, virtually none of the information collected and processed in what has been called the “surveillance capitalist” marketplace is off limits to the government. And even for types of personal information, like cell phone location data, that courts have said police can only force companies to turn over with a warrant, government agencies are sidestepping the warrant requirement by paying to access sensitive information instead of going to a judge.

In response to these profound transformations, civil rights advocates have pushed for consumer privacy protections to give people control over their personal information. In Illinois, civil rights advocates successfully fought for consumer privacy protections to limit what kinds of information companies can collect about us and the ways they can share and use these data. The ACLU is working across the nation to introduce state legislation to prevent law enforcement from making overly broad requests to try to identify everyone who visited visited a particular location (such as an abortion clinic) or searched online for particular keywords (such as abortion care). In Massachusetts, the abortion rights coalition is calling on the state legislature to pass a law to prevent the sale and trade of cell phone location data, which can be used to track who visits a reproductive health clinic.

We have also fought and will continue to fight for statutes and court rulings requiring police to get warrants before using invasive digital surveillance techniques like cell phone location tracking or making demands for our digital papers like emails and private web chats. And in some important cases, we have won these protections.

But the criminalization of abortion shines a glaring and unkind light on a bleak reality: Even warrant protections will not stop invasive digital surveillance of people seeking or providing abortions if doing so is a crime. That’s because if police can demonstrate probable cause that a person has committed or will commit a crime, they can obtain a search warrant allowing a search of someone’s most private information — the contents of our emails and text messages, our location history, the photos and private chats on our cell phone, and more. As what is considered criminal activity expands to include seeking and providing essential health care, privacy activists and lawmakers must likewise shift our approach.

In some cases, police should be prevented from acquiring or using particularly invasive technologies and techniques even with a warrant. In others, legislatures must impose strict limitations on their use, restricting surveillance warrants to only the most serious kinds of criminal investigations, excluding investigations related to sexual health. States that seek to preserve access to abortion should take extreme care to protect information created or maintained in their jurisdictions from being disclosed to out of state officials investigating sexual health related matters. Technology companies should change their internal policies and procedures to ensure that they notify their users of all government requests for their data before turning anything over unless a court order bars them from doing so, giving people a chance to fight back against surveillance aimed at their personal health information. And state legislators should enact strong laws ending nonconsensual collection and sale of sensitive information like location and biometric data, give people more control over how their personal information is collected and used by private companies, and outlaw the use of search word and geofencing warrants, which allow police to conduct dragnet surveillance.

Unfortunately, it’s not likely that the states that adopt abortion bans will be amenable to restricting law enforcement’s ability to use digital surveillance to investigate and prosecute crimes related to bodily autonomy. That means that while we build the political power we need to defend our ability to control if and when to have a child, it’ll be up to each of us to protect ourselves and each other.

The fact that we are about to take one of the biggest strides backwards in our country’s history should serve as a reminder to us all that we should never accept living in a surveillance society, no matter what technology is used to carry it out. Privacy sits at the heart of democracy, and we must fight like hell to ensure its relevance in 2022 and the decades to come.

For nearly two decades, courts and legislatures have been rolling back the damage wrought by the “superpredator” myth of the 1990s — the racist notion that young people who commit crimes, especially young people of color, will be a menace to society for their entire lives. This devastating ideology sent too many children to prison for too long, but in a series of modern decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court turned the tide. Recognizing that young people are immature, impulsive, and vulnerable to peer pressure — and that they outgrow these traits with time — the court decreed that young people deserve a second chance at freedom, even if they’ve done terrible things. In the language of the court, young people have the right to a “meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation.”

States across the country have taken heed, bolstering opportunities for young people sentenced to lengthy prison terms to receive earlier, and better, chances for release on parole. But California imposes a daunting obstacle to such second chances: the governor’s power to single-handedly reverse a decision of the parole board in homicide cases. California is a shameful outlier in this respect. It is one of just two states (Oklahoma being the other) that allows the governor to veto parole grants. Maryland recently abolished the practice, because, as one former governor put it, “How can it not be political for a governor to hold all the power” in parole decisions?

Indeed, politics is baked into the reversal power in California. Following widespread outcry over a controversial parole grant in the 1980s, California’s then-governor pushed a ballot initiative authorizing him to block the parole board’s release decisions. Unsurprisingly, governors regularly exercise this power in high-profile, politically toxic cases, like those of the Manson family members or 77-year-old Sirhan Sirhan, convicted of killing Robert Kennedy, despite the fact that these people are now elderly and have near-spotless records over decades in prison. But governors also frequently reverse in less infamous cases for fear of political retribution.

Consider the cases of our clients. For example, Joseph Pagaduan was abused by his parents throughout his childhood and, at the age of 18, killed them in a spontaneous and emotionally charged incident. Now in his 40s, Joey has built an exceptional record of his rehabilitation, including by pursuing collegiate education, working as a substance abuse counselor, editing the prison newspaper, participating in a therapeutic acting workshop, learning a variety of trades, and excelling in his work assignments and programming. The parole board rightly awarded Joey a second chance at freedom, finding that he posed no present danger, but the governor reversed the board’s decision absent any evidence to the contrary.

David Adkins’ case presents the same issue. Abandoned, abused, and neglected as a young child, David found solace in drugs, alcohol, and an older peer group. At the age of 16, while heavily intoxicated, he and a peer tragically shot and killed three friends in a heated altercation. That was 32 years ago, and since then, David has turned his life around. He has been sober and misconduct-free for 20 years. And he has pursued virtually every program, class, or work assignment available to him. Yet when the parole board granted him release, the governor reversed, requiring him to remain in prison despite his obvious rehabilitation.

Last week, the ACLU and ACLU of Northern California filed a lawsuit on behalf of Joey, David, and others alleging that the California governor’s power to veto parole grants violates the rights of young people to a “meaningful opportunity for release.” There is simply an unacceptably high risk that parole reversals are grounded in a governor’s political calculations, rather than public safety. That’s why we have asked the courts to abolish the governor’s veto power over the parole board in the cases of young people.

As our clients prove, children are so much more than the worst thing they’ve ever done. Their redemption must be recognized and not reduced to a matter of politics. Anything less would deprive them of their right to return home as mature, responsible community members.

On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a shameful ruling overturning Roe v. Wade in an unprecedented attack on women’s rights and reproductive freedom. But this fight isn’t just taking place at the Supreme Court. The ACLU is prepared for this moment, and will continue fighting in courts and legislatures, in the streets, and at the ballot box — and you can join us. Here are six ways you can take action.

No matter where you live, you can join the fight and support our partners fighting for abortion rights. A good place to start? Take the pledge to show your support.

Abortion access changes lives for the better. If you have had an abortion, supported loved ones seeking an abortion, faced obstacles to accessing care, or have had other experiences related to abortion access, share your story to show why abortion is an essential right.

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Share Your Abortion Story

Can’t attend a rally or would prefer a more remote option? Text FIGHTBACK to 826-23 to join ACLU alerts for more actions and updates on the crucial work ahead – delivered right to your phone.*

Abortion is likely to come up in conversations about the news — including among friends and family over the dinner table. Check out our handy guide for quick, crucial facts on abortion to equip you when discussing this essential right.

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Your Mini Guide to Discussing Abortion Rights at the Dinner Table | News & Commentary | American Civil Liberties Union

Credit: Gwen Schroeder

As we head into midterm elections and prepare for the 2024 national election, we must center abortion in the public debate for all elected officials and support candidates who unequivocally support abortion rights. Ask your elected officials and local candidates where they stand on reproductive rights, demand commitments to protecting abortion access, and spread the word to other voters.

Across the country, abortion funds are helping people access care by providing financial assistance to patients in need. You can help expand the impact by donating to an abortion fund today.

For more information on how to get support when seeking an abortion, check out the National Network of Abortion Funds.

You can also donate to help the ACLU continue fighting for reproductive freedom. Together, we will work toward a better future — one in which everyone is free to make decisions about their own lives and futures.

In courthouses and state legislatures across the country, the ACLU is challenging abortion restrictions and promoting abortion access in close collaboration with local providers and our partners. Our advocacy efforts have helped pass legislation protecting or expanding abortion access in states including Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.

Credit: Allison Shelley

After years of advocacy, we won a federal lawsuit challenging a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rule that required patients seeking mifepristone, a safe drug used for abortion, to pick up the pill in-person at a medical facility. The FDA has permanently repealed the in-person dispensing requirement since that victory, expanding essential access to abortion in states across the country. We’ve already shown we can win, and our strategies continue to evolve along with the fight for bodily autonomy.

The Supreme Court’s decision is a brazen attack on our fundamental rights, but the ACLU will never stop defending the right to decide when and whether to have a child, and to ensure that everyone who decides to have an abortion can access the care and support they need. We’ve been working for abortion access since before Roe v. Wade was decided, and we are committed to using the full force of the organization to keep up the fight for as long as it takes.

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Another way to join the fight? Donate now to help us win critical battles in courts and legislatures across the country.