As South Carolina lawmakers host a hearing today on state abortion policy following the end of Roe, a coalition of tech, health care, and civil rights groups are urging the legislature to reject S. 1373, a bill that would censor health care content online. S. 1373 bans websites and online platforms from hosting information on reproductive health care. The bill is sponsored by South Carolina Sen. Danny Verdin, who is chairing today’s hearing.

Read the coalition letter to the South Carolina Medical Affairs Committee. 

The coalition letter is signed by Advocates for Youth, Center for Democracy & Technology, Chamber of Progress, EducateUS, Electronic Frontier Foundation, LGBT Tech, National Women’s Law Center, PEN America, and SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change.

From the letter:

“It is already especially difficult for underserved racial and ethnic minority people to access and use reproductive health services as needed. Pregnant people who already have challenges accessing health care may especially depend on the Internet to find and receive accurate information about reproductive health. 

As drafted, [S. 1373] imposes such strict criminal liability on online services for publishing information in this category that these prohibitions may lead to services censoring direct messages between patients and caregivers on how to obtain safe care. It may also force services to block or censor telemedicine counseling services in which medical professionals advise pregnant people on a variety of reproductive health services, including but not limited to legal abortions.”

Watch Chamber of Progress’s video testimony for today’s hearing in the South Carolina Medical Affairs Committee. The full hearing is available here.

###

Chamber of Progress (progresschamber.org) is a center-left tech industry policy coalition promoting technology’s progressive future.  We work to ensure that all Americans benefit from technological leaps, and that the tech industry operates responsibly and fairly.  

Our corporate partners do not have a vote on or veto over our positions. We do not speak for individual partner companies and remain true to our stated principles even when our partners disagree.