The legislation, Assembly Bill 1242, would address the issue in three ways: First, it would prohibit the arrest of anyone for aiding or performing a lawful abortion in California.
Second, the legislation prevents law enforcement in the state from sharing information or assisting in an investigation related to legal abortions with out-of-state agencies.
And lastly, the bill bans companies headquartered or incorporated in the state from sharing information in response to out-of-state search warrants related to legal abortion procedures carried out within the state.
“If another state wants to track the movement of a woman traveling to California seeking reproductive health care, the state would be blocked from accessing cell phone site tower location data of the woman by serving a warrant to the tech company in California,” according to a press release from Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office.
Another example includes preventing other state agencies from accessing an individual’s Google search history from a particular IP address for out-of-state search warrants unless the evidence requested has nothing to do with legal abortion services.
The idea is that enforcing this law would “shield those seeking or providing reproductive healthcare against wrongful prosecution and ensure that California laws and California courts are not used to facilitate investigation or prosecution of abortion-related actions that are legal in our state,” Bonta said in the release.
