Abstract 

When the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the landmark case in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, it brought significant changes to the landscape of reproductive rights and digital privacy. This study investigates how heightened concerns over government surveillance and data privacy, prompted by this ruling, affect the usage of digital health tracking tools among women. This paper uses a panel of mobile phone usage data to analyze user behavior before and after the Dobbs ruling leaked, focusing on app usage patterns. Our findings reveal a significant and chilling effect on the usage of mobile health apps. Specifically, we observe a 9.6% decrease in the weekly number of app usage sessions and a 31% reduction in average time spent on mobile health apps immediately after the Dobbs verdict leak. We observe that this reduction is even higher for FemTech apps-an 18.6% decline in the number of sessions and a 66.7% reduction in weekly time spent per week. We find that these effects are moderated by demographic factors like race, age, and income as well as prior exposure to social media and news. Finally, we also observe spillover effects of the decision, in terms of increased adoption of privacy-preserving browsers following the leak.

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