Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
CatholicVote has entered the debate over the American Privacy Rights Act, opposing the bill and encouraging members to vote against it, per a letter obtained by Axios.
The big picture: CatholicVote dislikes the legislation because as a nonprofit, it would be counted as a "covered entity" subject to its rules.
- "Pro-life groups, crisis pregnancy centers, and faith-based organizations could be subject to government action and lawsuits," Thomas McClusky, CatholicVote director of government affairs, wrote in the June 21 letter.
- It would hurt "pregnancy resource" center advertising, which is meant to "break through the inundation of abortion advertising and media content," per McClusky's letter.
- Planned Parenthood and similar groups would also fall under the law.
The Catholic group also takes issue with the bill's section on data minimization and health information, which "could be read by a hostile administration to claim all data related to the purchasing of illegal abortion pills online is health information and so therefore not subject to the criminal activity carveout for data sharing."
- McClusky writes in the letter that the bill "creates a right" to delete information related to breaking abortion laws.
- He said in an interview that if the bill makes it to the House floor, the group will consider "scoring" the bill in its legislative tracker or sending alerts to supporters.
- CatholicVote has been talking with members and House leadership regarding its concerns about the bill, he said, and he's aware members of the Freedom Caucus have issues with the bill.
Between the lines: In the post-Roe world, groups on both sides of the abortion issue rely heavily on online advertising and reaching people via the internet to either offer information on reproductive services or spread their messages.
- The lack of a federal privacy law was brought into focus after Roe fell, leading some states to pass their own, including Washington's My Health My Data Act, which protects health data that falls outside the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
- APRA as it reads now does not appear to preempt such laws.
