SOUTH CAROLINA GOES ONE STEP BEYOND THE OVERTURNED ROE V. WADE BILL

 

                          …We now have a new generation of abortion protestors

 

How about making it illegal to receive info from a website on how to set up an out-of-state abortion?

 

It’s bad enough that the conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court have overturned a 49 year old, Roe V. Wade bill.  However, those in South Carolina have also made it illegal for any website to tell readers how to legally obtain an out-of-state abortion.

Shortly after the Supreme Court ruling that overturned the right to abortion in June, South Carolina state senators were all set to introduce legislation that would make it illegal to “aid, abet or conspire with someone” to obtain an abortion.  That also means any website that were to tell its readers how to obtain an out-of-state abortion, that would be “aiding someone to obtain an abortion”.

The bill aims to block more than just abortion.  The states provisions would outlaw providing information over the internet or phone about how to obtain an abortion. It would also make it illegal to host a website or “provide an internet service” with information that is “reasonably likely to be used for obtaining an abortion” and it is directed at all pregnant women in the state.

Legal scholars say the proposal is likely just one of other state measures, which may restrict communication and speech as they seek to curtail abortion. The June proposal, S. 1373, is modeled after a blueprint created by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), an antiabortion group, and the blueprint is designed to be replicated by many GOP lawmakers across the country.

As the fall of Roe v. Wade triggers a flood of new legislation, a similar battleground is beginning over the future of internet freedoms and privacy in many Republican run states across the country.  One, experts say, that could have a chilling impact on First Amendment-protected speech.  We can expect to begin seeing more Free Speech lawsuits in the future.

“These are not going to be one-offs,” said Michele Goodwin, the director of the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy at the University of California at Irvine Law School. “These are going to be laws that spread like wildfire through states that have shown hostility to abortion.”

Ms. Goodwin called the South Carolina bill “unconstitutional.” But she warned it’s unclear how courts might respond after “turning a blind eye” to antiabortion laws even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe.

Many conservative Republican run states’ legislative sessions ended before the Supreme Court decision, and won’t resume until next year, making South Carolina’s bill an anomaly. But some tech lobbyists say the industry needs to be proactive and be prepared to fight bills with communications restrictions that may have complicated issues for many companies.

“If tech sits out this debate, services are going to be held liable for providing basic reproductive health care for women,” said Adam Kovacevich, the founder and CEO of Chamber of Progress, which receives funding from companies including Google and Facebook (Meta).

Tech companies could soon be navigating a new patchwork of state laws, caught in the middle of a political tug-of-war between the red states and blue states. Democrats are already considering new data privacy proposals to protect reproductive health data and other digital trails that could be used to prosecute people seeking abortion. Meanwhile, Republican states could also attempt to preserve and collect that same data, which has been used as key evidence in cases against pregnant women.

Eric Goldman, a professor at our local, Santa Clara University School of Law, said the First Amendment and Section 230, a bill that shields internet providers and tech companies from liability for the posts, photos and videos people share on their sites, provide a strong defense in many instances for websites and providers facing lawsuits over hosting information about abortion access.

But individuals could face liability for aiding and abetting people in accessing a criminalized procedure if they send messages about how to obtain an abortion or otherwise break the law.

For the National Right to Life Commission (NRLC), the nation’s oldest anti-abortion organization, which wrote the model legislation, that limits communication is a key part of the strategy to seriously enforce laws restricting abortion. “The whole criminal enterprise needs to be dealt with to effectively prevent criminal activity,” Jim Bopp, the group’s general counsel, wrote in a July 4 memo, comparing the group’s efforts to fighting organized crime.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Mr. Bopp said that the group has refined its blueprint for states since the South Carolina bill was introduced last month. The restrictions on websites and internet hosts in the July model bill language would only apply when the information is likely to be used “for an unlawful abortion in this state,” he said, not abortions generally, as the South Carolina bill says.

It is only going to get worse before it gets better.

Copyright G. Ater 2022