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Pregnancy-Related Prosecutions After Dobbs: The Data

No prosecutor has subpoenaed period tracker data yet. Digital evidence, including messages and search history, has led to jail time. Here is the record.

No Tracker Subpoena Yet, but Digital Evidence Is in Play As of mid 2024, digital rights researchers tracking post Dobbs enforcement had found no cases where a menstrual tracking app's data was subpoenaed. No major period tracker company has publicly reported receiving a law enforcement request for reproductive health data. That does not mean digital evidence is absent from pregnancy related prosecutions. The Center for American Progress documented 210 pregnancy related prosecutions in the year after Dobbs (June 2022 to June 2023), the highest single year total ever recorded. Most of these cases relied on tips from healthcare workers, family members, or partners rather than digital surveillance. But in the cases where digital evidence appeared, it came from communication platforms and search engines, not health apps. The pattern is clear: prosecutors use whatever digital evidence is easiest to obtain and most explicit in its content. Messages discussing abortion plans are more immediately useful than cycle logs showing a missed period. But the subpoena infrastructure exists, and there is nothing preventing a prosecutor in a state with criminal abortion penalties from serving a perio