Tax code weaponized: Congress penalizes abortion as 'not health care'
S. 253 — Abortion Is Not Health Care Act of 2025 · Filed by Mike Lee (R-UT) · 7 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 24, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill amends the tax code to prohibit taxpayers from deducting abortion expenses as medical costs, with narrow exceptions for abortions performed to save the mother's life or in cases of rape or incest. Currently, abortion costs can be deducted under the general medical expense deduction; this bill removes that eligibility for most abortions while preserving it only in life-threatening or non-consensual pregnancy scenarios.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is to remove a tax deduction, making abortion more expensive for those who pay out-of-pocket. The title frames this as a definitional statement ('Abortion Is Not Health Care'), but the actual effect is a targeted tax cost imposed on a specific medical procedure.
What the text implies
- The deduction removal applies only to taxpayers who itemize deductions and have sufficient medical expenses to exceed the standard deduction threshold — lower-income taxpayers who take the standard deduction see no tax effect, while higher-income itemizers bear the full cost, creating a regressive impact.
- The exceptions for life-endangering conditions and rape/incest are narrow and require physician certification for the life-endangering exception, potentially creating barriers to access and documentation burdens in time-sensitive medical situations.
- The bill uses the tax code as a policy lever to discourage a legal medical procedure, establishing a precedent for using tax deductions to penalize or incentivize specific healthcare choices on ideological grounds.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill removes a tax deduction that was previously available to taxpayers, increasing the after-tax cost of abortion for those who pay out-of-pocket. This is a direct financial cost to citizens who seek abortion care (except in narrow carve-outs). The deduction removal does not serve a public-health, safety, or rights purpose — it is a tax penalty on a specific medical procedure.
Named in the bill
Internal Revenue Code Section 213, U.S. Senate Committee on Finance
Where it stands
7 cosponsors: 7 Republicans.
- Jan 24, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jan 24, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Finance · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 3 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $1,880,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 15 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Mike Lee, the sponsor, reported $241,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Universal Music Group — $1,460,000 on 2 filings
- Susan B Anthony List — $420,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 21, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,070 characters) on Jul 2, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 21, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Tax code weaponized: Congress penalizes abortion as 'not health care'” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s253 Report an error
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