In every U.S. state, healthcare workers perform blood tests on newborn infants to check for a range of genetic disorders. However, in New Jersey, the state Department of Health stores infants' blood for up to 23 years without informing parents or seeking their consent.
In addition to merely keeping the blood, New Jersey reserves the right to do whatever it wishes with the leftover blood, including selling it or handing it over to the police without a warrant. However, a new lawsuit from the Institute for Justice (IJ), a public interest law firm focused on government abuse, aims to challenge this status quo.
