{"id":275550,"date":"2022-09-07T16:37:28","date_gmt":"2022-09-07T21:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=275550"},"modified":"2022-09-06T22:36:46","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T03:36:46","slug":"georgia-opens-hov-lanes-pregnant-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/georgia-opens-hov-lanes-pregnant-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgia opens HOV lanes for pregnant women after recognizing personhood of preborn"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Georgia officials have approved the use of high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes for pregnant women, consistent with the state’s recognition of preborn children as legal persons.<\/p>\n

Following the overturn of Roe v. Wade<\/em>, the state’s law protecting preborn children with detectable heartbeats was able to take effect. That law and the subsequent court ruling\u00a0Sistersong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective v. Brian Kemp<\/em><\/a>, gave official personhood status to preborn children, noting that, \u201cIt shall be the policy of the state of Georgia to recognize unborn children as natural persons.\u201d The law goes on to clarify that\u00a0a natural person \u201cmeans any human being, including an unborn child,\u201d and that “unborn child means a member of the species Homo sapiens at any stage of development who is carried in the womb.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to WABE<\/a>, the state’s law regarding HOV use previously stipulated that the lanes were allowed for\u00a0\u201cvehicles with two or more (living and not pre-infant) persons.\u201d Since preborn children are now considered persons, the Georgia Department of Public Safety decided to remove the language “living and not pre-infant” from the HOV requirements.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Georgia recognizes preborn children with heartbeats as dependents on state tax returns<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This isn’t the first move by state leaders to officially recognize preborn children as persons following the Sistersong<\/em> decision. In early August, the Department of Revenue announced<\/a> that residents can now claim their preborn children on their taxes. These children are also viewed as residents and counted as such on census surveys. Women can even file for child support once the preborn child’s heartbeat is detected, which is usually around six weeks.<\/p>\n

As expected, abortion advocates are uncomfortable with the idea of defining a preborn child as a person, because that would (rightly) mean that abortion deprives these children of the right to life.<\/p>\n