Three Women Sued For Helping Friend Obtain Abortion Meds

In Texas...Surprise

Well, it’s happening. Three women are being sued in a wrongful death lawsuit. The crime? They helped their friend obtain abortion medication. The plaintiff? The woman’s ex-husband. The victim? The unborn fetus. Yes, this is real.

In a post-Roe world this day was bound to happen, and in a world without proper E2EE (end-to-end encryption) on all messaging across social media, such a day is facilitated further.

To be clear, the lawsuit alleges that it is relying on screenshots of a group chat between the women. Also, one of the women at one point encourages the pregnant woman to “delete all conversations from today” because “You don’t want him looking through it.”

Such assertions imply that the ex-husband had access to the woman’s phone and messages, in which case, obviously, E2EE would not have made much of a difference, because the ex-husband had access to her device.

So, while E2EE might not have made a difference in this case (and we don’t know for sure, this is still unfolding), not having E2EE on all messages will make lawsuits like this one more commonplace. If this lawsuit is successful, it will make all messages more vulnerable. Lawyers and law enforcement will try to prod and hack more as such a thing would be considered valid evidence. Another side note: Facebook has made it very clear they will cooperate with law enforcement in the pursuit of anyone’s DMs. Fight back here.