Texas Cops Are Tracking Abortion Patients With License Plate Data

5.29.25

Click to skip ahead: Criminalizing Care reports that Texas cops are using automated license plate readers to search for abortion patients. Democracy Denied has the latest from Missouri, where the state Supreme Court overturned the will of the people. In the States, news from Maine, Connecticut, Kentucky, Iowa, and more. Conservative Cruelty reports that Georgia Dems are demanding answers on Adriana Smith, and that Kansas women have brought a lawsuit over advance directives for pregnant people. In the Nation on Trump’s new judicial nominees and their wacky anti-abortion beliefs. Stats & Studies has new research showing mothers’ mental health is declining. And AED in the News shares an interview I did with Jane Coaston at What a Day.

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Criminalizing Care

Well, we knew it was only a matter of time: Texas cops tried to find an abortion patient by using data from an automatic license plate reader (ALPR), which gave them access to over 83,000 cameras across the country.

404 Media reports that Johnson County Sheriff’s Office spent over a month looking for a woman they believed self-managed an abortion—under the guise of ‘protecting’ her, of course. Sheriff Adam King told reporters that the search “was about her safety,” and that they weren’t trying “to block her from leaving the state or whatever.”

Abortion, Every Day first flagged the danger of ALPRs back in 2023, when I shared a report from the STOP (Surveillance Technology Oversight Project). Their warning was clear: ALPRs, traffic cams, even the data inside your own car could all be used to track and surveil abortion patients. The kicker is that police don’t even need a warrant to get access.

Take this latest case. Texas law enforcement used a company called Flok, which doesn’t require a court order—just a reason for the search. What did these cops put on the dotted line? “Had an abortion.”

And it’s not just local; this kind of surveillance pulls in data from across the country! Civil liberties groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have spent years urging pro-choice states to stop sharing ALPR data with law enforcement in anti-abortion states—warning that they could inadvertently aid the investigation of abortion patients and providers.

Now, here we are.

I really urge you all to read this whole piece, because the dystopian future feminists spent years warning about is here now.

Before you go, I had to share this final thought from Kate Bertash of the Digital Defense Fund. She points out that while technology is new, the tactic isn’t:

“We saw the groundwork for this laid pretty early. You had anti-abortion activists doing surveillance of abortion clinics, license plates, the people driving in and out, but they would stand in the parking lot with pen and paper writing down license plates.”

The only difference is that now a huge tech company is doing that surveillance for them, handing over automated tools “on a silver platter.”

Read past AED coverage to learn more:

The Rise of Digital Dangers Post-Roe

Democracy Denied

Anyone who still believes that Republicans “gave abortion back to the states” needs to take a look at what’s happening in Missouri right now. How many different ways can they prove they don’t care what voters want? How many different times do we need to explain to people that attacks on abortion rights are attacks on democracy?

Missouri voters passed a pro-choice amendment in November, but Republicans have been working overtime to undermine the will of the people ever since. Not only have they put the issue back on the ballot with an amendment that would ban abortion, but now the Missouri Supreme Court has repealed a lower court ruling that allowed for abortion care—effectively reinstating the state’s ban.

Planned Parenthood stopped providing care immediately after the ruling, calling patients to cancel their appointments. For a breakdown of how this went down legally, listen to this short segment from NPR, starting around minute 4:30:

Emily Wales, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, called the decision “shocking,” and said they plan to be back in court immediately.

In the meantime, Kansas abortion providers are opening up more appointments to handle the new influx of Missouri patients. President of Trust Women Kathryn Boyd says, “We have been providing essential care to people in the face of oppressive policies and threats of violence for a long time.”

Naturally, Republicans are pretending this is about protecting women’s health and safety. (Notice a trend?) Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey called the ruling “a win for common sense, for basic medical safety, and for the sanctity of human life.”

I’ll have more from the state in the coming days, but consider this yet another reminder that conservatives have zero interest in what Americans actually want on abortion.

In the States

Let’s get into some good news. First up, from Maine: A crucial protection for abortion providers has passed the legislature and is heading to Gov. Janet Mills for her signature.

LD 538 allows providers to keep their names off of abortion medication prescription labels, replacing them with their practice name instead. From Maine Rep. Sally Cluchey:

“They're doing hard work helping women on the worst day of their lives, and they're doing it because they believe it's right. And I think what we're showing them with this bill is that we got you. We are going to make it harder for people to come after doctors.”

I can’t stress enough how important this protection is—and how badly we need similar protections in other states, like California. Remember, the reason Louisiana and Texas were able to go after Dr. Maggie Carpenter with criminal and civil charges was because her name was on prescription labels. Laws like this make it that much harder for them to pull the same shit again.

More good news, this time in Connecticut: Minors will soon be able to access birth control without their parents’ permission. Lawmakers passed House Bill 7213, legislation that guarantees teens’ right to birth control, prenatal care, and pain management medication during labor.

While Connecticut minors already have access to reproductive health care—like STI testing and abortion—access to contraception is not guaranteed in state law. This legislation fixes that.

It also comes at a time when conservatives are weaponizing “parental rights” to block teens from accessing abortion, gender-affirming care, and birth control. And unfortunately, that messaging has worked—there are plenty of Democrats who won’t fight for teens’ rights because they’re scared of the political blowback.

That’s why it matters when groups push back. I told you last month about Right By You (RBY), a youth-focused organization that brought a suit challenging Missouri’s parental consent and notification laws. More like that, please!

Meanwhile, if you want to know how few women have been able to get vital healthcare in Kentucky, consider that there was just one abortion in the state in the first quarter of this year.

Kentucky has one of the strictest bans in the country, where only life-saving abortions or abortions to prevent “substantial” risk to health are permitted. While the state usually puts out an abortion report, it seems they’ve declined to because it would reveal information about the patient (given that there was only one).

Iowa abortion rights groups are expecting even more patients to leave the state for necessary care, now that Planned Parenthood is closing four clinics in the state. Iowa already has a six-week abortion ban—and these closures will leave only two Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. To help, consider donating to the Iowa Abortion Access Fund.

I also want to flag something important from Lyz Lenz, board chair of the Iowa Abortion Access Fund. Lyz pointed out that this doesn’t just hurt Iowans’ health and lives—but the state’s ability to retain young people:

“We’ll see fewer young people wanting to come here to go to college or people wanting to stay here after because if you’re living in a state virtually impossible to get affordable health care, why stay.”

That’s exactly right—and studies are backing it up. In January, the National Bureau of Economic Research found that states with bans lost 128,700 residents in the year following Roe’s demise, and that those in single-person households were most likely to move. (That indicates it’s probably young people fleeing these states.)

Quick hits:

• A rape survivor writes in The Salt Lake Tribune that closing Utah Planned Parenthood clinics will hurt abuse victims across the state;

• The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has a rundown of the abortion fight so folks can catch up before the Wisconsin Supreme Court comes back with a ruling;

• CBS News and Axios on the end of yet another Trojan Horse bill in Texas;

• And considering the news in Missouri, it’s worth reading this op-ed about why direct democracy alone is not enough.

Conservative Cruelty

Georgia Democrats held a press conference this morning demanding answers about the state’s abortion ban—and about what happened to Adriana Smith.

Smith was nine weeks pregnant when she was declared brain dead. Emory Hospital has kept her body alive for over three months, citing Georgia’s abortion ban as the reason they can’t remove life support.

Now, lawmakers are calling on Gov. Brian Kemp to request a legally binding opinion from the attorney general—one that clarifies how the ban defines medical emergencies and nonviable pregnancies, and what it means for cases like Smith’s. Most of all, they want to know: Why hasn’t any of this been made clear?

“Hospitals, doctors, and families across Georgia need answers,” said State Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes.

But this isn’t just about rare cases like Smith’s. The press conference also featured Kaycee Maruscsak, a young woman denied miscarriage care because of the state’s ban—despite the risks of hemorrhage, infertility, and death.

“I was forced to walk around for more than a week carrying Sawyer, who was no longer alive. Our healthcare system had no place for my situation because of these restrictive abortion laws. The decision was out of my hands.”

As you all know, Smith’s story has sparked outrage across the country. In one state, it also appears to have inspired a lawsuit. The Washington Post reports that three women and two doctors in Kansas are suing over the state law that nullifies a pregnant person’s advance medical directive.

I reported on this a bit last week: Over 30 states have laws that override your advance directive if you’re pregnant, and nine states—Kansas, included—automatically invalidate that directive.

The doctors in the suit say the law makes them unclear about what kind of legal care they can provide; the women (one of whom is pregnant) say the law violates their constitutional rights and “unjustly, discriminatorily, and categorically disregards their clearly expressed end-of-life decisions.”

Plaintiff Emma Vernon says, “I am no less capable of planning my medical care simply because I am pregnant.”

In the Nation

Remember the FDA lawsuit that claimed abortion medication “starves the baby to death”? I sure do! Well, Alanna Vagianos at HuffPost reports the authors of that suit have just been tapped by Donald Trump for lifetime federal judgeships.

Joshua Divine and Maria Lanahan didn’t just claim that mifepristone “starves” fetuses, but that women who take the drug would get PTSD and be “triggered” by their bathrooms, and that states are victimized by abortion because of a reduction in the population. Seriously.

And that’s to say nothing of the ridiculous junk science they use: like a ‘study’ that’s really just 98 blog posts on an anti-abortion website, and images of embryos and fetuses pulled Live Action’s ‘Baby Olivia’ video.

Abortion, Every Day broke the news about this suit back in October: The short version is that Kansas, Missouri, and Idaho filed an amended complaint against the FDA, seeking to stop the shipping of mifepristone and seriously rolling back access to the medication across the board. Divine and Lanahan were co-authors on behalf of Missouri.

HuffPost points out that the two haven’t withdrawn from that case despite their nominations, and that it’s unclear if they’ll have to.

Quick hits:

• NPR reports that more crucial reproductive health research is being jeopardized by funding cuts at Trump’s CDC;

• Renee Bracey Sherman writes at Prism that abortion rights groups are afraid that speaking out about Gaza will impact their funding;

• Finally, Mayday Health flew a banner with information about abortion medication over the Indy 500 this week. We love to see it.

Stats & Studies

No shock here: A new study shows a dramatic decline in American mothers’ mental health. Published this week in JAMA Internal Medicine, the study looked at data from over 200,000 women between 2016 to 2023.

In 2016, one in 20 mothers reported that her mental health was “poor or fair.” Just seven years later, the number of mothers reporting poor mental health jumped to one in 12.

While the study didn’t delve into why moms are struggling, I think we all have a pretty good idea. In addition to having no structural support—the U.S. doesn’t have paid maternity leave or subsidized child care—women are still doing the vast majority of work at home, even when they have full-time jobs.

And oh yeah: The country now has forced pregnancy, and being pregnant has become more dangerous than ever. (The study doesn’t do a year-by-year analysis, but I’d be very curious to see the difference in moms’ mental health after the Dobbs decision.)

We should be shouting this study from the rooftops right now—especially given that the White House is trying to ‘encourage’ women to have more children and force them back into the home.

AED in the News

I joined Jane Coaston at What a Day podcast to talk about attacks on mifepristone, and Republicans’ plan to make getting an abortion downright impossible. Watch below: