Alabama IVF ruling puts spotlight on state plans for tax breaks and child support for fetuses

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“This freakout — that we’re trying to do something unique legally — is just hysterical,” she said. “We believe that the mother and the child both have value. I won’t run from that; that’s true.”In questioning abortion opponents’ motives for pursuing more limited measures dealing with child support or income taxes, abortion rights advocates argue that they don’t represent meaningful aid for pregnant women or their families.During the Kansas House committee hearing this month, abortion providers argued that if the state wants to help them, it should consider expanding social services, including Medicaid; improve access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive care; or mandate paid family leave. The state’s budget division projected that almost 21,000 extra income tax filers could claim the dependent deduction — but the average savings would be about $91 each.Elisabeth Smith, state policy and advocacy director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, which fights for abortion access, called such measures “window dressing” and said they and the Alabama Supreme Court ruling are part of a coordinated anti-abortion campaign across the U.S.“This is absolutely part of the antis’ long campaign to perpetuate abortion stigma and to normalize that an embryo and a fetus are equal to a living, breathing human being walking around,” Smith said.But Mary Zieger, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, who has published six books since 2015 about the national abortion debate and its history, said states’ fetal personhood measures also could influence the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority to consider whether the U.S. Constitution’s rights apply to fetuses and embryos as a matter of history or tradition.“And then they’re going to say, ‘Well, look, there’s also all these states that hold this position,’” she said.In Alabama, voters amended the state constitution in 2018 to declare that the state’s public policy is “to ensure the protection of the rights of the unborn child.” Justices cited that provision in separate opinions on frozen embryos.

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