In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Georgia is emerging as the lead testing ground for an idea some abortion opponents have touted for decades: that fetuses deserve the same types of legal protections as people after birth.
The state is one of about a dozen that have banned many or most abortions since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ended federal constitutional protections for the procedure. But Georgia has taken an additional step, declaring that “natural persons include an unborn child,” with potentially wide-ranging implications for everything from taxes to welfare benefits.