Based on Facebook data, a teen and her mother pleaded guilty to abortion charges – A lady from Nebraska pleaded guilty to assisting her 17-year-old daughter with a medication abortion last year. The judicial action against her was based on Facebook’s decision to turn over private messages between the woman and her 17-year-old daughter about the latter’s plans to abort her pregnancy.
The case exemplifies how Big Tech might be used to aid in the prosecution of abortion in the United States, where the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade, a 1973 ruling that legalized abortion, in 2022. Experts have cautioned that location data, search history, emails, text messages, and even period- and ovulation-tracking apps can now be used to prosecute people who seek abortions and those who assist them, and this case demonstrates that they are right to be concerned.
Meta’s management could have battled the legal order to turn over private messages to the police, as it and other tech companies do from time to time for various reasons, but it did not. The private Facebook Messenger communications indicate how the two discussed plans to terminate the pregnancy and destroy the evidence, including instructions from the mother on how to use the tablets to stop the pregnancy. These messages prompted law enforcement to obtain a search warrant.
Police raided the family’s house and seized six smartphones and seven PCs, totaling 24 gigabytes of data such as internet history and emails.
Meta did not comment on time, although the business did publish a statement last year, which reads in part:
“Nothing in the valid warrants we received from local law enforcement in early June, prior to the Supreme Court decision, mentioned abortion. The warrants concerned charges related to a criminal investigation and court documents indicate that police at the time were investigating the case of a stillborn baby who was burned and buried, not a decision to have an abortion.”
As earlier stated in 2022, “A 17-year-old girl and a hastily hidden stillborn seem like something that might deserve closer inspection than a blanket grant to all that kid’s data.” Especially given the heated debate in the United States following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
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Meta has been hesitant to take a stand on abortion, but as Irish philosopher Edmund Burke once said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Mark Zuckerberg’s passive approach is reminiscent of his opposition to turning Facebook into a “arbiter of truth” in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. At the time, Zuckerberg acknowledged the necessity of not limiting political discourse, especially when it bordered on misinformation that could undermine the democratic process.
Jessica Burgess, the mother, acknowledged to supplying an illegal abortion pill to her daughter beyond 20 weeks of gestation, which was unlawful at the time. Republican Nebraska governor Jim Pillen signed legislation prohibiting abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy in May, which took effect immediately.
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Burgess also admitted to falsifying reports and tampering with human bone remains. According to court documents, the mother assisted her daughter in burning and burying the aborted fetus, which was eventually exhumed from a field north of Norfolk by officials. The court rejected allegations of concealing the death of another person and performing abortions without the supervision of a licensed doctor.
Madison County Attorney Joe Smith stated that this was the first time he had charged anyone with performing an illegal abortion after 20 weeks.
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Jessica Burgess is due in court on September 22 for a sentence on two Class IV felony charges and one Class I misdemeanor. Class IV felonies in Nebraska typically result in a sentence of up to two years in jail, a $10,000 fine, or both. Class I misdemeanors are punishable by up to one year in prison, a $10,000 fine, or both.
Celeste Burgess, now 18, was charged as an adult last year and pled guilty to removing, concealing, or disposing of a dead body in May. Her sentencing is set for July 20, and she might face up to two years in prison.
