Technically it was illegal the whole time in many places and the supreme court only last year recognized that they never had the power to prevent states from enforcing their own laws on the matter.
In states where it was illegal it may not even be ex-post-facto for them to prosecute for events that took place prior to last year's supreme court ruling.
Anyway, the real takeaway should be that businesses should not be collecting this kind of data in the first place. If they don't collect it, then they have nothing to turn over.
> Technically it was illegal the whole time in many places and the supreme court only last year recognized that they never had the power to prevent states from enforcing their own laws on the matter.
I don't agree with this "technical" interpretation at all. Nobody would have said in 2020 that technically abortion is illegal in many places. Just because the Supreme Court changed its mind doesn't wipe everyone else's minds.
It doesn't matter what you agree with. Plenty of legal scholars said exactly that, so you're wrong.
Roe ruled that certain state laws criminalizing abortion could not be enforced. But Roe's ruling was found to be unconstitutional and invalid. It was invalid the day Roe was ruled, not the day it was overruled.
Those same states laws criminalizing abortion, which were on the books before Roe and are still on the books, were always legal and enforceable because Roe never was. That is what the court determined last year.
> Plenty of legal scholars said exactly that, so you're wrong.
LOL. What exactly, numerically, does "Plenty" mean, and how does it compare to "all"? Of course, both the majority and minority of the Supreme Court in the Dobbs opinion are legal scholars, but they disagreed vehemently with each other.
Your response sounds very Orwellian to me. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.
Slavery was once legal everywhere until it wasn't. It became illegal in some parts of the country but eventually it became illegal everywhere. Now we can look back and think how obvious it is that slavery is wrong.
Murdering the unborn was once legal everywhere until it wasn't. It became illegal in some parts of the country and will eventually become illegal everywhere. One day we will look back and think how obvious it is that murdering the unborn is wrong.
You're missing the point. The transition from legal slavery to illegal slavery was not a smooth one. Consensus did not magically arise. People did not simply relent to legal authorities. There was a massively bloody Civil War fought over it. Regardless of what you think about how "One day we will look back" (and note how Confederate pride is still a thing today), you can't expect this to be like an ordinary legal issue. The transition is extremely divisive, and there will be resistance. Nobody could be neutral during the Civil War, and it's going to be difficult for corporations to remain neutral now, when they want pro-choice people to use their services. Abortion is legal in the headquarter state of the big tech companies, and those companies employ many pro-choice workers.
Abortion was explicitly legally protected for 50 years and only became a crime in some localities last year. There aren't many "crimes" like that.