Anti-abortion activists are collecting the data they’ll need for prosecutions post-Roe | MIT Technology Review
May 31, 2022
Anti-abortion activists are collecting the data they’ll need for prosecutions post-Roe | MIT Technology Review
May 31, 2022
The Supreme Court is shortly expected to issue its decision on a challenge to Roe v. Wade that will—if a leaked draft version of the opinion holds—end federal protection for abortion access across the US. If that happens, it will have far-reaching consequences for millions of people. One of those is that it could significantly increase the risk that anti-abortion activists will use surveillance and data collection to track and identify people seeking abortions, sending authorities information that could lead to criminal proceedings.
Opponents of abortion have been using methods like license plate tracking for decades. In front of many clinics around the US, it remains a daily reality.
To get to the parking lot at Preferred Women’s Health Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, for example, people often have to drive through a gauntlet of protesters carrying cameras and clipboards, filming their arrival and recording details about them and their cars.
Heather Mobley, a board member of Charlotte for Choice, volunteers as a clinic defender there. Clinic defenders put themselves in between people attending the clinics and protesters, verbally engaging with protesters as needed. They also surveil the surveillance. Mobley uploads examples of anti-abortion protesters’ tactics to TikTok; hers is one of several accounts that document the extent of daily protests there.
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