TRENTON, N.J.—Today, a group of New Jersey parents filed an updated complaint in their federal class action lawsuit challenging the state’s policy of keeping the blood of every baby born in the Garden State without first getting their parents’ voluntary, informed consent. Parents of several New Jersey kids, represented by the Institute for Justice (IJ), tried to resolve this case through negotiations without wasting taxpayers’ money. But after New Jersey refused to get informed consent before holding onto babies’ blood, those parents had to return to federal court to keep fighting for the rights of every parent and child in New Jersey. 

“The state had the opportunity to make this lawsuit go away by simply getting voluntary and informed consent from parents before holding onto blood samples beyond the initial testing, but they chose to double down on keeping parents in the dark,” said IJ Attorney Brian Morris. “Today’s updated lawsuit makes clear that the state’s half-step reforms don’t do enough to respect the constitutional rights of New Jersey families.” 

Every state draws blood from newborns to test for diseases. What makes New Jersey’s program unconstitutional is that the state holds onto the blood sample for years after the initial testing is complete. It has never asked parents for voluntary, informed consent to do any of that.  

And it still doesn’t. The state’s modest reforms, made in June of this year, shorten how long the state says it will hold onto the blood. But these voluntary changes, which could be undone at any point, lack the one thing that matters: consent. The state, for some reason, just can’t bring itself to ask parents for consent before retaining kids’ blood. So despite all the window-dressing, state officials are still violating the constitutional rights of millions of New Jersey families.  

“If the government wants to hold onto a child’s blood sample after the initial testing is done, they should have to get permission from the parents,” said Cranbury mother Hannah Lovaglio, one of the plaintiffs. “The fact that the state comes in during this very personal moment in someone’s life and misleads them about what they’re doing is very off-putting to me.” 

Other states, such as Texas, Minnesota, and Michigan have all faced lawsuits over their retention of blood samples without informed consent from the parents. The 2009 lawsuit in Texas resulted in the state destroying 5.3 million blood samples, and now, all blood samples obtained after 2012 must be destroyed after two years. A 2014 settlement in the Minnesota lawsuit resulted in 1.1 million blood samples being destroyed. In 2022, Michigan agreed to destroy 3 million blood spots, but that lawsuit continues to move forward.