(CNN)Breakthrough of the Supreme Court, allowing states to ban abortion The decision is how authorities adhere to enforcing such a ban and publicly emphasizing that the anti-abortion movement protects the abortionists themselves from prosecution.
The pattern abroad in countries that ban abortion, along with the US's own experience before Roe, previews a complex and unequal enforcement situation.
The leaders of the anti-abortion movement, who have fought for years to overturn the Roe v. Wade case, are not the ones seeking abortion, but the abortion providers and others who facilitate the procedure. I have emphasized that the prosecution should be focused. However, critics of the movement point to examples of when the criminal justice system was already directed at women whose pregnancy was deliberately or inadvertently terminated-with Roe still in the book.
For example, in one case in 2018, a Mississippi woman who had a stillbirth was found to be looking for an abortion drug after authorities obtained telephone data for her second time. Was accused of murder. (The case was later withdrawn after the prosecutor scrutinized the evidence, including the use of scientifically questionable tests to determine if the fetus was born alive.)
Pregnancy ending in spontaneous abortion is often indistinguishable from pregnancy ending in pills, so personal data of women and information shared with medical staff is armed by prosecutors. There is a possibility. Even if the woman herself is not liable for criminal charges, she can still be dragged into the law enforcement process as part of the prosecutor's efforts to investigate whether her pregnancy ended illegally.
"My research has shown that women were actually punished, even though few women were charged with abortion and imprisoned." Professor Leslie Reagan said. Illinois Urbana-Champaign and author of "When Abortion was a Crime". "It's due to the method of execution, which is to cross-examine a woman who was looking for an ambulance crew after having an abortion or trying to induce an abortion."
However, where law enforcement officers seek to enforce abortion bans, medical staff who provide treatment to women who are pregnant may also be a source of information for law enforcement officers.
In El Salvador, a country with a very positive approach to implementing abortion bans, government officials are sent to hospitals to report suspicions that patients have intentionally ended their pregnancy. To the medical staff. According to Michelle Overman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law and author of "Her Body, Our Law: At the Front of the Abortion War from El Salvador to Oklahoma."
Doctors say, "If you don't report these women, they may be subject to fines and other penalties themselves."
In the pre-Abortion era, women seeking medical care after an abortion faced cross-examination, Reagan said, "We don't provide medical care, you urgently need it. We do not provide medical care. " Unless they cooperate with the investigation.
Even now, on behalf of the Managing Director of the National Advocate for Pregnant Women, the medical care that women receive due to the end of pregnancy could lead to the involvement of law enforcement agencies. One Dana Sasman said. Sasman's organization provides counsel and other resources to those facing accusations or investigations related to pregnancy and its consequences. The organization has recorded 1,700 arrests, prosecutions, detentions, or compulsory medical interventions for pregnancies or women associated with pregnancy outcomes between 1973 and 2020, a major of these cases. The part is not accompanied by miscarriage or abortion.
If Roe reverses, Sussman said, "I think there could be more cooperation between healthcare providers and police."
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (1996 Act, also known as HIPAA, which sets privacy standards to protect patients' personal health information) is for enforcement purposes. There are exceptions, Sasman said. “As we expand the way criminal law applies in these situations, HIPAA protection becomes even more limited.”
Another common tactic that organizations have seen in their activities is. , A law enforcement agency that uses women's personal data to find evidence.
"If someone had an abortion and police and prosecutors were trying to file a lawsuit for an abortion under their own control, Sasman told CNN: Digital footprint. Who to contact, when, what, what to search for, what to buy, about credit card bills. "
She said this kind of digital evidence "If prosecutors try to distinguish between abortion and self-managed abortion, it will be necessary to make that distinction."
Fisher's lawyer has encouraged the use of "float tests." The prosecutor withdrew her original indictment after reviewing questions about the reliability of the method and other allegations regarding Fisher that proved unsubstantiated. When they represented the case to the grand jury in more context about the evidence, the grand jury refused to bring new accusations against Fisher.
Laurie Bertram Roberts, co-founder of the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund, who helped Fisher's defense, saw investigators using Fisher's Internet search as a "thinking crime."
"For example, I'm thinking about an abortion in two months and I'm looking for an abortion. Then I decided not to do it. Then I had a miscarriage in four and a half months," Roberts said. rice field. CNN. "That's a risk. Many people think about abortion and then don't."
Who is the subject of prosecution
Abortion Ban law and history experts expect that most of the enforcement will take place in communities left behind by police-bearing societies. -Some people compare it to the war on drugs.
"The chances of getting caught up in this police web will be higher for people of color and the low-income," Reagan said.
A survey of El Salvador's very powerful enforcement approaches found that despite 30,000 abortions occurring each year in the country, there were still only about 10 convictions per year. Oberman said. She said the woman's background is what El Salvador's authorities look at to determine if her pregnancy ended naturally or intentionally.
"Physicians in these cases tend to suspect patients with stories that suggest reasons for wanting an abortion," she said. Dangers such as rape victims, single mothers, or people living in areas where personally safe gangsters are endemic. "The cases reported are against the poorest and most marginalized people in society, and the cases where prosecutors move forward are similar to the cases where they can talk about their motives."
Local prosecutors who have gone beyond the law
Anti-alienation activists are consistent in their approach to avoid targeting women who obtain abortion. And if Roe overthrows, the command stays at the forefront.
"We have seen everything we have seen, with a few exceptions, the true commitment of lawmakers to make it clear that women cannot be prosecuted. I know, "said Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion group.
Oklahoma Parliamentarian Jason Lappert, who sponsored a "trigger" abortion ban that would take effect in the state if Law overthrows, dismissed the idea that women would be targeted and "new false" concerns. I called it "flag". It's being thrown out just to raise the issue. "
When asked how investigators would determine if a miscarriage was a natural or medically-induced abortion, Lapert said, "You are also about the person's honesty. I'm talking.
"I believe what a miscarriage is, and what it doesn't, people will be able to tell." I hope to write an anti-abortion law and finish the procedure. Enforcing these laws will ultimately be left to the local prosecutor.
"In Starr County, prosecutors initially put together prosecutions, misunderstood the law, and found people who misused it." "It's possible, but any crime is possible."
This story was updated following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade case on June 24th.
