Facebook hands over chats to cops in post-Roe abortion case – TheRegister

Private Facebook chats between a Nebraska mother and her daughter has been used by law enforcement to build a criminal case against the teen for getting a now-illegal abortion in her home state. This appears to be the first case in post-Roe America of cops obtaining a search warrant and essentially forcing a tech company to help them prosecute an abortion case. Jessica Burgess, 41, pleaded not guilty to five criminal charges including felonies for administering abortion pills to her then-17-year-old daughter, and then helping bury the fetus, according to the Lincoln Journal Star. The daughter, who is being tried as an adult, also pleaded not guilty to three charges, including a felony. A Norfolk Police detective, Ben McBride, began investigating the two women in late April, months before US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. However, under an earlier Nebraska law, abortion is illegal 20 weeks after an egg is fertilized.  According to McBride’s affidavit [PDF], Burgess claimed to have given birth to a stillborn child when she was around 23 weeks pregnant, after reportedly taking abortion pills. After obtaining medical records and interviewing both women, McBride obtained a search warrant [PDF] that required Facebook’s parent company Meta to…
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