Alabama Embryo Rights Decision Sheds Light on Nationwide Fetal Personhood Initiatives – Sky Bulletin

The landmark ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court recognizing frozen embryos as legal children has cast a spotlight on a nationwide effort to afford fetuses the same rights as living individuals. This judicial move echoes a series of seemingly modest laws and proposed bills from opponents of abortion across the United States.

Similar to a groundbreaking Georgia statute, legislative measures in no fewer than six states propose that women can claim child support dating back to the time of conception to help offset pregnancy-related costs. Additionally, Georgia law permits expecting parents to apply for a dependent child income tax deduction before birth, a benefit that Utah also extended last year, with at least four other states reviewing comparable legislative proposals.

The concept of fetal personhood, which extends legal and constitutional safeguards to embryos and fetuses—as much as to the expectant women—is at the core of over two dozen legislative proposals currently under consideration in at least 15 states, according to an assessment by The Associated Press using Plural bill-tracking tools.

This Alabama Court verdict has brought significant attention to the anti-abortion advocacy’s long-term target of ensuring embryos and fetuses receive the same legal considerations as the women carrying them. Yet, those supporting abortion rights view any law granting rights to fetuses, even to a restricted extent, as potentially having far-reaching consequences.

“Laws pertaining to humans could eventually be applied to fetuses,” explained Melissa Murray, a law professor from New York University. “This opens up the entire spectrum of both statutory and constitutional law.”

Those opposed to abortion maintain that their endeavors towards enacting laws around issues such as income taxes and child support—or providing funding for anti-abortion centers that offer pregnancy and after-birth services—are motivated by empathy for women and girls in vulnerable positions. They argue that this support might deter some from considering abortion, but stress that their tax and child support initiatives also aim to assist women and girls who may not even have abortion as an option in their minds.

“The primary goal is to extend support to mothers and families needing additional aid, as well as to organizations aiding them, such as pregnancy resource centers,” remarked Lucrecia Nold of the Kansas Catholic Conference.

A recent Kansas House committee hearing on the child support proposal and a bill to apply the state’s $2,250 dependent tax deduction to unborn children are under Senate committee deliberation, with more discussion anticipated in the weeks ahead.

Despite its Republican-led legislature, Kansas is somewhat of an anomaly due to a 2019 state Supreme Court decision that acknowledged abortion access as a fundamental right tied to bodily autonomy within the state constitution. Efforts to amend the constitution to state explicitly that it does not recognize abortion rights—thus paving the way for strict regulations or bans—were decisively rejected by voters in August 2022, marking the first of seven state votes that upheld the right to abortion post the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.

Moreover, there has been a Kansas statute since 2007 which legitimizes separate indictments for offenses against fetuses, including severe crimes such as capital murder and battery—this statute has yet to face legal opposition. A further 2013 state law states that life begins at fertilization, claiming that “unborn children have interests in life, health, and well-being that should be upheld,” yet it has not been employed as an abortion restriction.

Brittany Jones, an attorney who lobbied for the child support measure and policy director for Kansas Family Voice, reflected that the state Supreme Court overlooked these laws during its 2019 verdict.

“Claims that we’re trying to legally maneuver towards something uniquely different are overblown,” she stated. “We genuinely believe in the worth of both the mother and child.”

In contrast, advocates for abortion rights argue against the authenticity of these legislative proposals as being genuinely supportive of pregnant women or their families.

Healthcare providers advocated at the Kansas House committee hearing earlier this month for improved state assistance, including Medicaid expansion, better access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare, and enforcing paid family leave, rather than the financial gestures offered by the state’s proposed tax deduction—which would average out to an estimated savings of only about $91 for each of nearly 21,000 additional tax filers.

Elisabeth Smith from the Center for Reproductive Rights, an organization striving for abortion access, dismissed these measures as mere “window dressing,” suggesting that they, alongside the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision, are components of a unified anti-abortion tactic nationwide.

“It’s all part of the anti-abortion groups’ prolonged agenda to cast abortion in a negative light and perpetuate the belief that embryos and fetuses are equivalent to autonomous human beings,” added Smith.

However, Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, who’s authored numerous books on the abortion debate and its history, articulated how state-level fetal personhood measures might potentially prompt the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority to deliberate whether constitutional rights could historically or traditionally extend to embryos and fetuses.

“They might reflect on various states’ stance on this matter,” she said.

The Alabama electorate modified its state constitution in 2018 to affirm the unborn child’s rights. This adjustment was pivotal in justices’ decisions regarding frozen embryos in their latest opinions.

Stateswide fetal personhood proposals are in the legislative pipelines of at least four states, and Vermont has even proposed rights for fetuses at the 24-week gestation mark, though passage through the Democratic-heavy legislature is doubtful.

Ziegler, currently researching the push for fetal rights, commented that widespread legislative support for fetal personhood might not resonate well with electorates who champion access to abortion or in vitro fertilization. She observed that abortion adversaries are scoping for elusive legislative “unicorns” that forward the fetal personhood agenda without provoking public ire.

“Their longer strategy seeks federal acknowledgment of fetal personhood eventually,” she deduced.

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This report was filed by Mulvihill from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.