[lelanthran]

> User chat logs and search history released by social media companies to police can be used to prosecute people for abortion, even when they are being investigated for other reasons.

Firstly, can you even prosecute a woman for abortion? Aren't they legal?

Secondly, if the abortion is illegal, it's not unusual for the state to prosecute someone when the investigation of that person reveals other crimes.

What would you propose instead? That any evidence of secondary criminal activity uncovered during an investigation of the primary activity be ignored?

[OkGoDoIt]

In the USA, abortions are now illegal in many states. This was a major change that took place last year.

[mulmen]

You should do the bare minimum to familiarize yourself before wading in to this particular topic.

Abortion legality varies by state in the US. This is a recent development.

I wouldn’t expect to be prosecuted, or even investigated, for typing “how people get away with bank robbery” into Google. Or for watching The Dark Knight.

[lelanthran]

> You should do the bare minimum to familiarize yourself before wading in to this particular topic.

I did, and my understanding is that any secondary crimes uncovered during an investigation of a crime can be pursued.

What about that do you disagree with?

[mulmen]

> Firstly, can you even prosecute a woman for abortion? Aren't they legal?

This part.

[jeroenhd]

> Firstly, can you even prosecute a woman for abortion? Aren't they legal?

In case you've been living under a rock for the last while: several American states have banned abortions[0][1] after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade. The federal government failed to implement any laws to safeguard access to abortions so overturning Roe vs Wade was all that conservatives needed.

Some states have exceptions for rape and incest, some don't. Texas even offers a sizeable bounty for reporting abortions. This has already resulted in medical care being refused to women carrying stillborn children and other pregnancy complications fatal to either the mother or the child out of fear of prosecution.

As for secondary criminal activity: I agree, if the police finds other illegal acts during a legal investigation, they should be allowed to act on that. This is the proof that the whole "if you've got nothing to hide" narrative surrounding state surveillance is dangerous.

[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/abortion-laws-ro...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law_in_the_United_Sta...

[markles]

> In case you've been living under a rock for the last while:

It might surprise you, but people who don't live in America probably don't follow, nor care about the politics going on in specific states.

[matsemann]

Then they should perhaps read up on the situation before commenting? Like, this is the first sentence in the article we're discussing:

> As abortion bans across the nation are implemented and enforced (...)

So claiming ignorance is not a valid point.

[misnome]

This ceases to be a valid excuse when those people then jump into the middle of a discussion exclusively about laws and politics in the US.

[madeofpalk]

Seems to be weird to roll into the comment section if you don't follow this, nor care.

[aunty_helen]

This was a big thing my dude. Coverage from all angles in multiple countries outside the us.

[concordDance]

> I agree, if the police finds other illegal acts during a legal investigation, they should be allowed to act on that.

I'm not sure this principle is a good one. Almost everyone had probably broken a law or two (yes, this meane there are too many bad laws, let me know if youve an idea of how to solve that), so by investigating someone for some random thing they haven't done you've got a good chance of finding something. This de facto gives imprisonment powers to the police and prosecutors office, giving plenty of opportunity for corruption.

[lelanthran]

> I'm not sure this principle is a good one. Almost everyone had probably broken a law or two (yes, this meane there are too many bad laws, let me know if youve an idea of how to solve that), so by investigating someone for some random thing they haven't done you've got a good chance of finding something. This de facto gives imprisonment powers to the police and prosecutors office, giving plenty of opportunity for corruption.

Well, that's not going to work out well - LEOs investigating a shoplifter should just ignore the corpse lying in the backyard?

It's just no going to fly - crimes are crimes, and if you want a crime to be not-a-crime then follow the legal process in your jurisdiction to make it so.

[salawat]

>yes, this meane there are too many bad laws, let me know if youve an idea of how to solve that)

I, in fact, do. All laws come with baked in sunset dates. No exceptions. Furthermore, it's clear there is a need for some sort of secondary legislature or sub committee of the primary dedicated to the repeal of bad law. Then again, if that worked, we wouldn't necessarily be in the problem we're in.

[Jcowell]

> I, in fact, do. All laws come with baked in sunset dates. No exceptions.

The problem with this, I imagine, is that when the sunset dates comes around, and a new political party is in control, they will let the new law lapse and laws will be ping logging back in forth given they even get the votes to go back in effect.

This would be terrible for very important laws like the Civil Rights Act.

[mulmen]

Do we put a sunset date on the bill of rights?

What’s the sunset date on these abortion bans? Is it more than 9 months? Is there any reason to believe they will be repealed at their sunset date? How long do we tolerate the injustice? What do you tell the woman who wants an abortion today?

Bad laws aren’t a mechanical problem. They’re a people problem. Repealing law is something the current legislatures are perfectly capable of. The hard part of repealing “bad law” is defining “bad”. A secondary repeal committee would have the same difficulty as our existing legislature.

If you don’t like a law then go do something to change it. In case you doubt the feasibility of this recall that is exactly what happened with abortion.