Democrats introduce bill that aims to protect reproductive health data
Source: The Guardian
Wed 11 Jun 2025 09.00 EDT
Last modified on Wed 11 Jun 2025 13.23 EDT
Three Democratic members of Congress have introduced a bill to limit companies’ ability to hoover up data about people’s reproductive health – a measure, they say, that is necessary to protect women from persecution in the post-Roe v Wade era.
Representative Sara Jacobs of California, Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon on Wednesday filed the “my body, my data” bill in both the US House and Senate. The bill aims to block companies from collecting, using, retaining or disclosing information about someone’s reproductive health unless that data is essential to providing a requested service. This provision would apply to information about pregnancy, menstruation, abortion, contraception and other matters relating to reproductive health.
“Young people live our lives online, right? That includes tracking our periods, but it also includes our phones tracking our location and using Google to think about your medical care or how to obtain an abortion for yourself or a friend, or ordering abortion pills online, or using an Uber to travel to an abortion clinic,” Jacobs said. “All of those things are tracked online, and none of those are protected right now.”
Law enforcement officials have already attempted to use people’s data trails to identify abortion seekers. In 2022, the year that the US supreme court overturned Roe, Nebraska brought a series of felony and misdemeanor charges against a teenager and her mother in connection to the teen’s abortion. The charges relied on Facebook chats, which the social media giant had turned over. (Both the teenager and her mother pleaded guilty and were sentenced to time behind bars.) In 2023, anti-abortion activists used cellphone location information to send anti-abortion messages to people who had visited some Planned Parenthood clinics. And in May, a Texas police officer searched tens of automatic license plate reader cameras, including in states that permit abortion, for a woman who officials suspected of self-managing an abortion.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/11/democrats-my-body-my-data-act
This year's bill doesn't look to be published yet but they have introduced it in the 2 previous Congressional sessions, the last one under the 118th is here (Senate version) - S.1656 - My Body, My Data Act of 2023