Courts say parents lose the right to their baby's blood privacy once the state takes it for medical tests.
March 19, 2026
Original Paper
Newborn Screening Programs & The Fourth Amendment
SSRN · 6335838
The Takeaway
State programs often store newborn 'blood spots' for decades and share them with researchers or police without consent. Recent rulings found that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to these samples because the act of taking the blood terminates the parents' 'possessory interest,' leaving the government free to use the genetic material as it sees fit.
From the abstract
State newborn screening programs draw blood from newborns to detect dangerous heritable diseases. After conducting the screening, these programs typically retain residual dried blood spots for years and provide them to third parties in conjunction with medical and public health research or law enforcement activities. Frequently this occurs without parental consent or knowledge. Such practices have given rise to increasingly significant controversy over the past 30 years.<br><br>Despite the pract