Our Bodies, Our Data, Our Choices: The Value of Privacy for Female* Self-Determination in a Post-Roe Era

In this chapter I explore the challenges and advantages of viewing privacy as an individual right to data protection. Recently, privacy has been criticized for dominating the public and academic debate on the ethics of technology – a debate held in the context of health apps. I investigate the limitations of privacy as an individual right to data protection in the context of the recent decision (Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization) by the Supreme Court of the United States of America to overturn the right to decisional privacy (Roe v Wade), which amounts to the right to an abortion. In response to this decision, various groups emphasized the need for health data privacy to protect women*’s rights. This chapter aims to point out the importance of privacy as an individual human right while showing that it is helpful to move the FemTech discussion post-Roe beyond privacy-as-individual-data-protection. If we want to understand how new technologies contribute or undermine people’s autonomy, we need to recognize the social and decisional dimensions of privacy.