There were more than 36,000 “unborn children” claimed in tax filings in Georgia in 2022, the year the state enacted an abortion ban that also let people claim fetuses as dependents. Claiming that fetus, however, may have only netted individuals less than a couple hundred dollars in a state where a fifth of all children live in poverty.
Georgia currently bans abortion past six weeks of pregnancy, which is before many women know they’re pregnant. But that ban, unlike the other dozen-plus bans that currently blanket much of the US south and midwest, includes a provision that allows people to claim a $3,000 deduction for a “dependent minor” fetus as long as that fetus reaches six weeks of gestation.
Defining a fetus as a “minor” is part of a nationwide campaign by anti-abortion activists to bestow embryos and fetuses with “fetal personhood”, or full legal rights and protections. If realized to the maximum extent, fetal personhood would not only make abortion illegal but also rewrite vast swathes of US law, including tax law, with sometimes-unforeseen consequences.
During debate over Georgia’s ban, a lawmaker who sponsored it estimated that deductions from the bill would range somewhere between $7m and $9m. But in 2022, those deductions topped more than $109m, a spokesperson for Georgia’s department of revenue told the Guardian.
Yet, given the byzantine nature of tax laws, pregnant individuals in Georgia probably benefited very little from those deductions, said Richard Auxier, a senior policy associate in the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. A deduction lowers an individual’s taxable income, not their tax bill, and the deduction’s ultimate value varies based on tax rates.
“This is a very small tax benefit. In terms of what an actual person could claim for this, we’re talking like $150. That’s it,” said Auxier, whose evaluation of individuals’ savings is roughly in line with a past analysis. “And critically, only relatively higher-income families.
“In my opinion, I will say, this is a tell,” Auxier said. “This is why this is not tax policy. It’s abortion politics masquerading as tax policy.”
If Georgia wanted to seriously help people ease the economic burden of having a child, Auxier suggested that Georgia implement a state child tax credit, which can directly diminish families’ tax bills and thus keep more money in their pockets. Fifteen states as well as the federal government already offer versions of such child tax credits.
“A deduction can only lower your taxable income to zero. So if you don’t have much money, or much taxable income, it’s never going to help you,” he said. “But you can make a credit refundable. If you don’t have much income and you don’t have much tax liability – if you have very little or even zero—we can just give it to you as a refund.”
In 2021, in the midst of the coronavirus lockdown, Congress expanded the child tax credit to provide monthly payments to millions of US families. That credit has been linked to a historic reduction in child poverty, with child poverty falling to a record low, as well as a drop in child hunger. But that expansion lapsed at the end of 2021 and, amid a lack of Republican support, has not returned. Joe Biden is now campaigning on a promise to revive it.
When it comes to children’s economic wellbeing, Georgia ranks 35th in the nation, according to an evaluation by the Annie E Casey Foundation, which considered factors like the number of children living in poverty, living in households that are burdened by housing costs, and living with parents who lack secure employment. In an evaluation of children’s health, which examined factors like infant birth weight and the number of children living without health insurance, Georgia came in 43rd.
States that have passed abortion bans, such as Georgia, also tend to have higher maternal and infant mortality rates and more maternity care deserts.
Georgia’s budget for fiscal year 2025 tops $36bn. The state probably lost about $6m because its tax deduction for fetuses, Auxier estimated.
In 2023, the rate of preterm births in Georgia earned an F grade from March of Dimes, a national organization dedicated to improving maternal and infant health, which also found that the infant mortality rate among Black birthing people was 1.5 times higher than the rate among other people in the state. A review of maternal deaths in Georgia in 2019 and 2021 also found that 85% were preventable.
Advocates who are dedicated to curbing Georgia’s maternal and infant mortality crisis said that they never asked for a tax deduction for fetuses – and that they have struggled to garner the support and money they need from the Republican-controlled state legislature.
Miriam Goodfriend, policy manager at the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia, said that lawmakers view the money set aside for addressing the maternal health crisis as “finite”. When legislators moved to increase funding for a project for moms, they took it from the funding set aside for another project for babies.
“They’re taking from infants and giving to mothers,” Goodfriend said. Although the coalition was able to get the money reinstated, Goodfriend said: “When we ask for funding, we have to watch them extra closely to see where they’re going to ‘take’ it from because they’re very much so guarding the state’s surplus budget.”
This legislative session, Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia hoped to pass legislation that would eliminate sales taxes on menstrual products. But that proposal died in the state legislature.
Precious Andrews, director of special projects and innovations at Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia, has given birth twice in the state. Her experience was so “horrendous”, she said, that she will never again give birth in Georgia. Despite that experience, Andrews said, she never wished for a tax deduction.
“That’s not what I wanted. I was like: ‘Dang, I’m pregnant, I need a doula. Dang, I’m pregnant, I need to ensure that my healthcare provider is not going to gaslight me, I’m not going to experience medical racism,’” Andrews said. “Those were things that I worried about.”
