For those wondering why this is a safety issue, in many American states abortion or "fetal harm" is considered murder. You can be imprisoned, theoretically for life. This is of course a rapidly evolving area of law since the fall of Roe v. Wade. Having one's menstrual data available for subpoena is therefore quite a literal safety risk.
"At least 38 states authorize homicide charges for causing pregnancy loss"
https://www.law.cuny.edu/academics/clinical-programs/hrgj/pr...
As a clarification for the "I didn't do anything wrong, I have nothing to hide" crowd, most of the time when someone is pregnant and then suddenly not pregnant, the cause is a miscarriage. And most people would go see a doctor if there is a lot of pain or bleeding. An overzealous prosecutor (usually running for election) is going to make the claim that you went to a doctor and now you aren't pregnant, you must have made an abortion. And now you have to hire lawyers to argue in court. And all in a easily 3rd-party mass-suppeonable database. That's why this is such a big problem.
https://thegeorgiasun.com/news/woman-arrested-after-miscarri...
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2025/04/02/law-pregnancy-...
Yep now instead of menstration cycles and abortion, replace it with antisemitism or grass-eaters or any other political disposition. You may be getting denied jobs because of posts you made to an anonymous imageboard which you thought were anonymous, but something like your Grammarly extension sent all your typed text up the pipe and now the corporate-state squid knows you're a wrongthinker full of thoughtcrime.
Intel agents look for blackmail to gain leverage over targets. I wonder how many security cleared personnel are going to be vulnerable to Chinese and Iranian extortion, once a database run by one of the cloud-based cannabis CRM+POS companies gets leaked with all that customer and purchase info. I am seriously considering making a fake ID for pot shops, so they quit typing my name into their cloud-connected fucking databases!
Try replacing it with something that wasn't even a concern years ago but now is the hot topic. Various things go in and out of style. Those harmless pranks you did as a kid that everyone laughed at then are now immoral and enough to get you on.
Surely the burden of proof is on the prosecution?
I don't have a problem with this. If a child - even an unborn one - dies in mysterious circumstances, I would prefer the inconvenience of a fruitless investigation over the prospect of living in a society where we don't even care enough to ever be suspicious.
There is nothing mysterious about a miscarriage. They are common. According to the Mayo Clinic:
> Miscarriage is the sudden loss of a pregnancy before the 20th week. About 10% to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage. But the actual number is likely higher. This is because many miscarriages happen early on, before people realize they're pregnant.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pregnancy-los...
Subjecting a person who is already upset about her miscarriage to a fruitless investigation is cruel and stupid; I’d prefer to live in a society where we understand that miscarriages happen as a part of nature and don’t need to further torment the people who suffer from them.
As I understand it, in this case, a witness saw a woman throwing a child's remains in a dumpster. After investigation, it was cleared as a miscarriage.
What would you prefer? We turn a blind eye to people disposing of bodies? Cops refuse to investigate such reports?
It sounds like everything worked as intended here. Of course it's unfortunate for the innocent woman involved, but this is clearly not a witchhunt.
This line of discussion inevitably boils down to what one's definition of a human life is and whether a fetus at a particular stage of development meets that definition.
Let's not have that discussion here on HN. It's not going to be fruitful.
For a conviction, yes, the burden of proof is on the prosecution. But in the meantime, you have to pay for a lawyer, and you will be sitting in jail for a year because they don't give bail for murderers. And as for the lawyer bills, the court doesn't refund you the money when you are found innocent, and it isn't going to be cheap, not for murder.
The process is the punishment.
So you want the state to investigate every single miscarriage?
Where did "mysterious circumstances" come from? I didn't see it mentioned anywhere in this thread...
Do you think a miscarriage is a "mysterious circumstance"? I can only assume so, given your response. That seems like the result of what could only be tremendous ignorance.
Behind this is the utterly asinine social idea that miscarriages are something rare.
I think it's a big leap from "menstrual tracking" to being prosecuted because ... what? A gap in the tracking data?
That's too distant a connection for me to believe that information really would change anything.