A Texas sheriff’s office tapped into a nationwide network of tens of thousands of automatic license plate readers to locate a woman who had a self-managed abortion, raising alarms from privacy and abortion access advocates.
On May 9, an officer with the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office used a tool called Flock to access a nationwide network of some 83,000 license plate readers as part of its search.
Abortion is almost entirely illegal in Texas, but the search included cameras in states where abortion is legal, like Washington and Illinois, according to data obtained by tech news website 404 Media.
The sheriff’s office told the outlet it initiated the search because the woman’s family was “worried that she was going to bleed to death, and we were trying to find her to get her to a hospital.”
“We weren’t trying to block her from leaving the state or whatever to get an abortion,” Sheriff Adam King said. “It was about her safety.”
The camera company, meanwhile, told the outlet it supports local jurisdictions’ laws regarding surveillance technology.
Abortion has been almost completely illegal in Texas since 2022, and those who perform abortions can face civil and criminal penalties.
The state has narrow exceptions in its abortion laws to protect the life of the mother, and does not have exceptions for rape or incest.
Texas’s restrictions have prompted numerous OB-GYN doctors, including those who don’t perform abortions, to leave the state, in fear of facing complications under the state’s abortion rules.
This week, a bill in the state legislature allowing private citizens to sue those who facilitate telehealth abortions for upwards of $100,000 failed to pass a key hurdle, likely meaning it won’t be passed during the current session.
About 1 in 5 abortions are done through telehealth, with about half of the patients living in states that ban or limit abortion, according to 19th News.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has targeted a New York-based doctor for allegedly selling mail-order abortion pills to a Texas patient.
Earlier this month, a Texas midwife was arrested for allegedly owning and operating a network of illegal abortion clinics.
In 2022, a Texas woman was jailed and charged with murder for a self-managed abortion, though prosecutors later dropped the charges. The woman has since sued local officials over the arrest.
