Your privacy is at risk should Roe v. Wade fall, experts warn

There is a fundamental American right on the chopping block.

This week's news that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn the landmark abortion case of Wade was like a bolt of lightening, potentially shattering fifty years of settled law in the process. The public reaction to the news was focused on what a reversal would mean for the right to abortion, but experts warn that the Court's impending decision will endanger the right to privacy.

The right to an abortion and the right to privacy are connected in U.S. law. The right to privacy guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment stems from the right to abortion.

According to experts who spoke with the website, the willingness of the court to toss one boded ill for what many Americans consider to be their basic right to privacy in their own homes.

Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, was warned about the arguments made in the Supreme Court's leaked draft decision.

It would reverse a half century of abortion rights, but it would also undermine the right to privacy in the Constitution, which has played a role in protecting everything from the right to contraceptives to the right to same-sex couples.

Cahn and S.T.O.P. are not the only ones who are concerned about Americans privacy after seeing the leaked draft.

According to its website, an advocacy organization working to ensure that all people have the power to determine if, when, and how to define, create, and sustain families with dignity, is deeply aware of the connection between privacy and the right.

One of the most alarming aspects of the draft decision leaked last night is that it abandons the concept of the right to privacy in favor of the ability to make intimate decisions about how we live our lives.

Privacy for the average person has long been under assault and the potential erosion of privacy protections at a legal level is troubling. Recent technological innovation has made life more convenient and has allowed our devices and services to know more about us. Privacy is quickly becoming a thing of the past, as a result of the invasions of the apps on our phones and smart cars, as well as the more serious and profound privacy threats powered by all-encompassing location data collection.

According to the Washington Post, the data generated by phone movements, searches, and social media activity can be used to determine if a person has had an abortion. Some of the data is for sale.

The issues thrust into the spotlight by Monday's leak of the Supreme Court's draft decision are more pressing than ever.

The hacking or purchase of location data to attempt to recover bounty prizes for snitching on girls and women who are only trying to save their own lives must be stopped to prevent devastating outcomes.

The technical privacy challenges faced by people seeking abortions are something that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is aware of. The EFF supports the digital rights of people seeking abortions, and emphasized that those rights include digital privacy, according to an email from an EFF senior legislative activist.

Tsukayama said that the introduction of bills in several states seeking to limit abortion rights, even before this draft was leaked, has raised serious concerns about the ways that data and digital information can be used to limit those rights.

The experts that we spoke with agreed that the threat to Americans' privacy-derived rights is not limited to the right to abortion.

This is not only troubling for people who have the ability to self-determine their reproductive lives by self-managing an abortion without punishment, it is also troubling for all aspects of their sexual and reproductive lives.

Chief Justice John Roberts insisted that the authentic leaked draft document is not final, and privacy and legal experts see a dangerous and regressive path ahead.

Cahn, S.T.O.P.'s executive director, warned that the re-casting of the Constitution will leave us with fewer and fewer rights, our most intimate decisions subject to veto by Congress and state legislatures.

If the Supreme Court draft decision stays the same, Americans who have become accustomed to the basic right to privacy in their own home will be left out. If experts are correct, this is a place that embraces the technological intrusiveness we've come to accept from the likes of data brokers and online trackers as the first step down a darker path.