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An anti-choice group called “Voices for Life” is trying a new strategy to put a target on the backs of abortion providers and recipients in the state, seeking to make potentially identifying details about them publicly available.
If the group succeeds in forcing Indiana to publicly release records associated with all abortions performed there, abortion providers won’t be facing abstract risks. Eleven abortion providers have been murdered in the U.S. since 1993, and abortion clinics continue to experience arson attacks and invasions. From 2023 to 2024, there were 37 reported cases of stalking and 38 reported cases of assault and battery against abortion providers.
In states with total or near-total abortion bans, providers and patients alike face the threat of criminalization that has already caused the death of several pregnant people by delaying or denying access to life-saving abortion care.
Indiana Already Has a Near-Total Abortion Ban
This current attempt to intimidate abortion providers and recipients is occurring in a state that already has a near-total abortion ban.
Indiana’s abortion ban was passed almost immediately in 2022 after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. The law was initially blocked by an Indiana judge, but in 2023, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that the law could go into effect. Since then, nearly every abortion in Indiana has been illegal.
Eleven abortion providers have been murdered in the U.S. since 1993, and abortion clinics continue to experience arson attacks and invasions.
Indiana’s near-total ban has unique exceptions compared to other states with similar bans. It permits abortions in certain cases that protect the life and the health of the pregnant person. It also allows abortions in cases of a lethal fetal anomaly up to 20 weeks, and in cases of rape or incest, but only up to 10 weeks. And, since the law bans abortion clinics, all of those abortions must take place in a hospital or a hospital-owned surgical center. These account for very few abortions — in 2024, there were only 146 abortions in the state — but they do still occur, albeit rarely.
Yet that isn’t enough for abortion opponents in Indiana. Until they succeed in getting every abortion banned, they want to put a public target on the providers and patients associated with the few abortions that do happen in the state.
Anti-Choice Activists Are Trying to Weaponize State-Based Reporting Rules
Forty-five states and D.C. require some form of reporting on abortion care, including asking providers to report to state health agencies about the method of payment for an abortion and complications that arise. These reporting requirements ostensibly still protect patient privacy. But what abortion opponents are trying to do in Indiana is to weaponize this privacy-protecting, state-based reporting against patients and providers.
The Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) itself initially opposed this kind of reporting. “Given that the report is populated with information that could be reverse engineered to identify patients — especially in smaller communities — [IDOH argues]) that the required quarterly reports should suffice in terms of satisfying any disclosure and transparency considerations,” wrote Luke Britt, the Indiana Public Access Counselor, in a 2023 letter.
It will be much easier for abortion opponents to identify patients from rural or sparsely populated areas. This not only makes them a target for harassment and potential violence — it also undermines their fundamental right to privacy under HIPAA (and, while it lasts, Griswold v. Connecticut, the landmark 1965 Supreme Court case that established the right to privacy).
Forcing the release of these records isn’t about legal compliance and it isn’t about public interest.
The IDOH declined to make the termination reports public — but the rabidly anti-choice Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita mounted a public pressure campaign to force the agency to release the records. Anti-choice group “Voices for Life” took up the call.
“Voices for Life,” an Indiana-based anti-abortion advocacy group, is now petitioning the Indiana Supreme Court to force the state to release the records of all pregnancy terminations performed. The Indiana Attorney General previously tried to make public this information but was subsequently blocked by a court order. That order was upheld by an Indiana appeals court in December 2025, keeping abortion records private.
Abortion Providers Have Reason to Fear Violent Targeting If Records Are Released
Forcing the release of these records isn’t about legal compliance and it isn’t about public interest. It is simply the latest attempt from abortion opponents to intimidate abortion providers and patients and expose them to the well-established danger of murder, arson, stalking, assault and battery committed by opponents of abortion rights.
Forcing the state to release the termination records of the very few abortions that do happen in Indiana puts a bigger target on their backs for harassment from abortion opponents and even potential criminalization, despite the fact that these abortions were lawful.
It may sound hyperbolic to claim that the release of these records could lead to harassment against abortion providers and patients, even if they are anonymous. But the anti-abortion movement has decades of experience in harassment and intimidation.
As a clinic escort, I’ve seen firsthand the lengths to which some abortion opponents will go to track and intimidate patients and providers: Following them to their cars, taking down their license plates, and filming them and putting their pictures online are commonplace tactics. In the early 1990s, hundreds or even thousands of abortion protesters would descend on a clinic, rendering it inoperable. After the FACE (Federal Access to Clinic Entrances) ACT became law in 1994 and made it a felony to block access to a clinic, abortion opponents shifted to more targeted harassment. Picketing outside of providers’ homes, harassing providers’ children at their schools, and various forms of digital harassment have been seen in recent years.
But the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization unleashed a new wave of intimidation and harassment, and now it can be sanctioned and even led by the state. By striking down Roe v. Wade and ending the federal right to an abortion, states are now free to ban abortion and police abortion seekers and their supporters. Texas has already utilized public cameras and license plate tracking software to these ends. A Texas police officer used automated license plate readers (ALPRs) and surveillance tech company Flock to launch a nationwide search for a woman he suspected of self-managing an abortion, and this included data in states where abortion is protected by law. Geofencing, which creates a virtual boundary around a physical place, not only enables targeted digital surveillance and messaging when patients approach a clinic or any specific area, but, as the Council on Foreign Relations notes, it also “creates a commercial incentive for data brokers to sell as much data as they can about individuals who are accessing basic health care.”
Even if Indiana’s abortion opponents don’t succeed, their failure can still serve as a warning that the future of your privacy or safety is uncertain. And if they can’t ban every abortion, they want any and all potential pregnant people to fear that someone is watching.
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