As if banning abortion wasn’t enough, now the police want to track you down if you dare to seek one in a state where it’s still legal. That’s exactly what happened to one woman in Texas. People found out about the incident when it was revealed that police ran a search through over 83,000 automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras across the country just to find her. The sheriff claimed they were simply responding to the woman’s family, who were allegedly worried about her safety. According to him, they were using the tech to make sure she didn’t bleed to death after self-administering the abortion.
He insisted it wasn’t about punishing her or stopping her from getting an abortion. It was just about making sure she was safe and could be taken to the hospital if needed. But critics weren’t convinced. Experts pointed out that self-managed abortions are generally very safe. They said the real danger often comes from state violence and criminalization. The situation became even more complicated because it was the woman’s own family who reported her after she told them what she had done.
And it’s not just law enforcement using this kind of surveillance. Anti-abortion activists have also been known to monitor abortion clinics and track the license plates of people visiting them. For many, this incident is a huge red flag. It is yet another example of creeping state surveillance. With AI becoming more integrated into law enforcement tools, critics warn that this kind of monitoring could get even worse.
Many people didn’t buy the sheriff’s explanation, especially given the extreme lengths police went to in order to track down the Texas woman who had self-managed an abortion. One user commented, “Ah yes, the freedom state strikes again.”
Another remarked that this kind of surveillance is all too common in Dallas. “I can’t even leave my neighborhood without being tracked and recorded by the government,” they wrote. “I purposely drive further just to avoid passing by the cameras. I even made a Google map marking every location, and it’s insane how many cameras are watching us now.”
Others claimed they had long suspected that Flock cameras would eventually be abused by authorities. One user wrote, “As soon as I found out what Flock cams were last year, I knew they’d be used for this kind of creepy stuff. Between this and ICE having access to the data? No thanks.”
