Abortion bans are incredibly unpopular, which is why Republican lawmakers have become increasingly sneaky about how they introduce legislation to attack our reproductive rights. Their latest strategy seems to be trying to sell fetal personhood as a means to help new families who are struggling to make ends meet.
This month, Ohio state Rep. Gary Click (R) introduced a bill to allow parents to claim “conceived children” on income taxes—and, in order to qualify as a tax credit, embryos would be legally considered people. "I've introduced a bill, look for the acronym here, it's called Strategic Tax Opportunities for Raising Kids: STORK," Click said in a video posted on Twitter. "You can claim your child as a deduction on your state taxes the year that they were conceived and not the year that they were born... And that is going to help young families get a head start." Great acronym, Click—STORK certainly makes me less terrified of an unborn embryo’s rights superseding my own!
"Any parent can tell you that the costs of child-rearing begin piling up well before a baby is born," he continued. "We should absolutely be in the practice of supporting young families.”
We’ve seen bills like this before, especially since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. That same year, Senate Republicans introduced both a fetal tax credit and a bill to put “fathers” of fetuses on the hook for child support. In 2023, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Florida proposed similar tax credits for embryos, as did Kentucky and Kansas earlier this year. Lest you thought there was anything benign about this bill, Click explained to The Hill this week that his inspiration came directly from his unsuccessful 2022 bill, the Personhood Act, which would have granted legal personhood rights to embryos from the moment of conception. “In the midst of the conversation, somebody was really being a smart aleck, and they said, ‘Well, can we claim them on our taxes?’” Click said. “And I thought, ‘Well, you know, that actually does make sense.’" Per The Hill, Click's current bill has seven Republican co-sponsors and awaits a first committee hearing.
This bill is another example of the insidious creep of fetal personhood disguised as seemingly well-meaning legislation.
The truth is that ANY fetal rights diminish the rights of pregnant people. Don't fall for it!https://t.co/pHwtsFiXkB
— Pregnancy Justice | @pregnancyjust.bsky.social (@PregnancyJust) August 28, 2024
The idea of tax benefits for pregnancy, like the idea of being able to drive in the carpool lane while pregnant—recently floated in Texas and Virginia—is obviously appealing. But as lawyers and reproductive rights advocates have long warned, if a fetus or embryo is a person, the government holds practically unfettered power over a pregnant person’s body, and their rights become secondary to the fetus. A pregnant person traveling across state lines without their partner’s consent could be charged with “kidnapping.” If you lose a pregnancy after being physically attacked, you could face manslaughter charges. And, as we’ve already seen in Alabama, IVF, which requires routine destruction of unused embryos, could be outlawed. Abortion would certainly be banned.
Earlier this year, when Kansas Republicans introduced a similar bill, Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes warned that it was “a tactic that is used to make it easier to enact anti-abortion laws down the road.” The bill came after, in 2022, Kansans overwhelmingly voted to protect abortion rights in the state on a ballot measure—Ohioans did the same in 2023.
But Click dismissed all these concerns, telling Newsweek: “I find it interesting that some people seem to love the concept and yet remain apprehensive because of their predisposed positions on abortion. However, I believe this bill benefits everyone. Prochoice people often choose life. … This should be bipartisan,” he wrote. “Yet, there seems to be a fear by some that this small tax relief for young families getting started will undermine their entire agenda. Those folks should relax."
In a statement about the Ohio bill, Pregnancy Justice’s Dana Sussman effectively shut down any notion that we should “relax” about legislation like this: “The promise of tax credits today at the expense of bodily autonomy forever is a losing proposition. Enacting support like expanded paid family leave, affordable child care and workplace protections would mean real change for pregnant and parenting Ohioans."
“Fetal personhood changes the legal rights and status of pregnant people and forces them to forfeit their own personhood,” Sussman wrote. "And this isn't something that anyone should 'relax' about and take lightly."
