Expectant mom Luz Solis, 22, waits with her 1-year-old daughter Josranely Matos at the Concilio de Salud Integral in Lois, Puerto Rico, on August 30, 2016. Republicans in multiple states are introducing bills to grant embryos and fetuses the same rights as children. (Angel Valentin/Getty Images)
As state legislative sessions grind on, conservative lawmakers have filed a new batch of bills that would grant legal rights to fetuses and fertilized embryos.
Lawmakers in at least eight states — Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas — have considered bills to go even further, to punish women who seek abortions.
Most of these states have already banned abortion. But new criminalization bills would allow women to face homicide charges for obtaining abortions. The bills would classify an embryo or fetus as an “unborn” or “preborn child” who can be a victim of homicide. Many of the bills would repeal parts of state laws that explicitly exempt women from being punished for seeking abortions.
“If we truly believe in the equal humanity of the preborn, then our laws must uphold that truth in practice,” Idaho state Sen. Brandon Shippy, a Republican, told fellow lawmakers while introducing his bill in February. The bill would allow women who seek abortions to be prosecuted under the state’s homicide laws.
“Justice requires accountability for intentional actions,” Shippy said. “To exempt any group from accountability actually undermines the law’s integrity and diminishes the value of the life being protected.”
Shippy did not answer requests for comment.
Most lawmakers, including Shippy, admit this type of legislation is a long shot. His bill is sitting in an Idaho Senate committee, although the chamber’s Republican leaders have indicated they wouldn’t move it forward. But similar bills are still pending in five other states — Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, South Carolina and Texas.
Meanwhile, conservative lawmakers in several states are introducing less punitive bills that are structured around the same legal concept: fetal personhood.
A longtime cornerstone of the anti-abortion movement, fetal personhood is the idea that a fetus, embryo or fertilized egg has the same legal rights as a newborn. If the law considers fetuses to be people, then abortion should legally be considered murder.
But experts and reproductive rights advocates have long warned of the legal chaos that could result from fetal personhood laws, with potential implications extending far beyond abortion.
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“In some ways it’s a hornet’s nest,” said Rebecca Kluchin, a history professor at California State University, Sacramento, whose research has focused on fetal personhood efforts. “If you establish fetal personhood, it raises all of these questions. Do you recognize a fetus on your taxes? How do you calculate the census? What do you do about miscarriages? What about alimony? It is really messy.”
And this year, less than two months after voters approved a state constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to abortion, a Republican legislator introduced a fetal personhood bill that would put the question on the ballot again in 2026.
If the bill is approved by two-thirds of the state legislature, the question would ask Montanans whether they support amending the state constitution to grant full rights to all people “at any stage of development, beginning at the state of fertilization or conception.”
The measure passed out of committee last month along party lines.
At a legislative hearing, Montana residents expressed concern that a personhood ballot measure would not only outlaw abortion but also eliminate access to in vitro fertilization and expose women who miscarry to possible criminal prosecution. An estimated 10% to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, though the percentage is likely higher for all pregnancies, since many losses happen before a woman knows she’s pregnant.
Do you recognize a fetus on your taxes? How do you calculate the census? What do you do about miscarriages? What about alimony? It is really messy.
– Rebecca Kluchin, California State University, Sacramento
Defenders of such legislation have downplayed its impact on IVF and insist that states have a duty to protect all life.
“For those of you who believe that a human life begins at conception and deserves legal protection, because the right to life is the foremost of unalienable rights, I don’t see how any of us could be satisfied with having a law on the books that does not actually protect human life beginning with the biological beginnings of human life, which is fertilization,” South Carolina Republican state Sen. Richard Cash told fellow legislators in February while introducing his bill.
Critics also worry criminalization bills could drive medical providers out of state and cause women to delay seeking medical care over fear of being punished for pregnancy complications. They say personhood language could even threaten individuals’ end-of-life decisions, such as “do not resuscitate” directives, which are often used by people with terminal illnesses.
Child support and tax credits
Many personhood bills are not, at face value, about banning abortion. Yet they ultimately could have the same effect. Some experts say that any attempt to weave fetal personhood language into state law could set the stage for stricter abortion laws.
A new Ohio bill would let taxpayers claim “conceived children” as dependents on their taxes. And Republican lawmakers in Kansas introduced a bill to guarantee child support payments to mothers from the moment of conception.
“These bills often look, on their face, like they’re trying to be helpful to pregnant people,” said Carmel Shachar, faculty director of the Health Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School’s Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation. “But oftentimes the way they’re drafted, they’re almost impossible to take advantage of.”
For instance, Georgia’s Department of Revenue has interpreted the state’s anti-abortion law as allowing residents to claim a fetus with a detectable heartbeat as a state tax deduction. But the maximum tax savings is only about $150, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. And because it’s a deduction, rather than a refundable tax credit, it’s not available to many families with low incomes.
At least 19 states — either through state law, criminal statutes or case law — have declared fetuses at some state of pregnancy to be people, according to a 2023 report from Pregnancy Justice, a nonprofit that conducts research and advocates for the rights of pregnant people, including the right to abortion.
Fetal personhood language in state law has allowed prosecutors to press murder charges for the killing of a fetus after the killing of a pregnant woman in multiple states, including New Hampshire and Oklahoma. Laws also have allowed women in several states to be prosecuted for child endangerment for substance use while pregnant.
Anti-abortion discord
Historically, anti-abortion laws that carry criminal and civil penalties have targeted abortion care providers, such as physicians. Yet bills that would allow broader criminal prosecution of abortion are not unheard of; they’ve popped up over the years in conservative-led states, such as North Dakota.
But they aren’t widely popular, even within the anti-abortion movement.
In February, a representative from the North Dakota Catholic Conference spoke against a Republican-sponsored fetal personhood bill that would add “unborn child” to state laws relating to murder, assault and wrongful death lawsuits. The conference’s co-director told lawmakers that while his group opposes abortion, it doesn’t support punishing women who seek one. The bill made it to the House floor, where it eventually failed.
“There’s a real division in the pro-life movement,” said Kluchin, the history professor. “To some folks, abortion is murder, so anyone who commits abortion, whether a provider or pregnant person, should be accused. But most of the pro-life movement doesn’t go that way. Their thought is, how can you be compassionate if you accuse a woman of murder? That’s not going to get the general public on your side.”
Many lawmakers proposing the homicide bills acknowledge they’re unlikely to garner widespread support, even among their fellow conservatives.
“But it’s a way to say, ‘Here are my pro-life bona fides,’” Kluchin said. “I’m not sure it matters that it isn’t going to get out of committee.”
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This report was originally published by Stateline, part of the States Newsroom nonprofit news network. It’s supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.