Did You Know Your Fetus Is Tax Deductible?

By Gil Cohen | Thursday, 04 August 2022 08:30 PM
Views 3.2K
Did You Know Your Fetus Is Tax Deductible?

Pregnant women in the U.S. state of Georgia will have the authority to deduct their fetuses as dependents on their taxes under a 2019 anti-abortion law that a judge allowed to go into effect last month, the state said.

The state's tax agency said on Monday that any woman whose fetus has a noticeable heartbeat as of July 20, the date of the court ruling, can take a personal tax exemption in the amount of $3,000 for each fetus if she has more than one.

The Georgia Department of Revenue did not deliver details, such as what happens if the pregnancy ends in miscarriage during the tax year. The agency said it would provide further guidance later in 2022.

The law allowing the deduction was part of a so-called fetal heartbeat bill passed three years ago in Georgia, which sought to ban abortion after the fetal cardiac activity is detected, typically at around six weeks gestation.

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That bill, which also allowed women to attain child support for a fetus, was one of a raft of abortion bans and restrictions that were not authorized to go into effect for years - as long as the United States Constitution was interpreted as protecting a right to abortion.

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After a new conservative super-majority on the U.S. Supreme Court abolished those protections by overturning the landmark Roe v Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, Georgia's law was allowed to go into effect.

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Providing pregnant women to claim their fetuses as dependents is a notion that has been supported by some in the anti-abortion movement for years. Bills to allow that have been introduced at the federal level at least twice.

Arizona enacted a similar statute, but a court has thwarted enforcement of its law granting "personhood" to fetuses, said Elizabeth Nash, who studies state abortion policy for the pro-abortion rights Guttmacher Institute.

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Georgia's tax move is the broadest understanding of fetal personhood to be passed hitherto, she said through a spokesperson.

The ACLU of Georgia, which is one of several groups suing to block the law, said that while a tax break is welcome, it is dangerous to grant full personhood to an embryo.

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“We are all for measures to support pregnant people, through tax credits or otherwise. What’s dangerous and confusing is Georgia’s attempt to treat an embryo from the earliest days of pregnancy as a person with rights equivalent to those of the pregnant person,” said Julia Kaye, an attorney for the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. The Georgia Department of Revenue did not immediately respond to a request for comment or clarification from Reuters.

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