{"id":174292,"date":"2017-11-06T15:51:49","date_gmt":"2017-11-06T20:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=174292"},"modified":"2017-11-06T18:23:21","modified_gmt":"2017-11-06T23:23:21","slug":"abortion-advocates-angry-gop-tax-plans-parents-college-savings-preborn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/abortion-advocates-angry-gop-tax-plans-parents-college-savings-preborn\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP tax plan recognizes baby in the womb as a human being"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus has labeled\u00a0a 529 college savings plan for an \u201cunborn child\u201d in the GOP tax plan a “back-door attempt to establish personhood from the moment of conception.”\u00a0Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) criticized<\/a> the wording in a November 2 press release, issued shortly after the plan was released by the House. The move follows a change<\/a> by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to define human life as \u2018beginning at conception.\u2019<\/p>\n

According to Politico<\/a>, the GOP tax bill “would allow expectant parents to start putting away money for college and private school tuition, wading into the battle over when human life begins.”<\/p>\n

The proposal<\/a> defines the ‘child in utero\u2019 as, “a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development” and reads:<\/p>\n

UNBORN CHILDREN ALLOWED AS ACCOUNT BENEFICIARIES.\u2014Section 529(e) is amended by adding at\u00a0the end the following new paragraph:
\n\u2018\u2018(6) TREATMENT OF UNBORN CHILDREN.\u2014
\n\u2018\u2018(A) IN GENERAL.\u2014Nothing shall prevent an unborn child from being treated as a designated beneficiary or an individual under this section.
\n\u2018\u2018(B) UNBORN CHILD.\u2014For purposes of this paragraph\u2014
\n\u2018\u2018(i) IN GENERAL.\u2014The term \u2018unborn\u00a0child\u2019 means a child in utero.
\n\u2018\u2018(ii) CHILD IN UTERO.\u2014The term \u2018child in utero\u2019 means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.\u2019\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

NBC pointed out that the bill’s terminology “mirrors a section of the 2004 Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which was enacted after the\u00a0murder of Laci Peterson<\/a>, who was pregnant.”<\/p>\n

In response to the news, Paul McLeod, BuzzFeed reporter for Capitol Hill,\u00a0tweeted<\/a>, “I’m reading this as anti-abortion wedge. If an unborn child can be a beneficiary, that makes them a legal person, so how can they be killed?”<\/p>\n

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Paul McLeod Tweet on GOP Tax Bill Tweet<\/p><\/div>\n

Following release of the bill, abortion advocates went ballistic.<\/p>\n

Their fear is that if it can be established that the preborn child in the womb is a person, it could lead to overturning the infamous Roe v. Wade<\/em> decision, which forced abortion on the nation.<\/p>\n

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NARAL on GOP Tax Bill Tweet<\/p><\/div>\n

“On its own, I find it a despicable play to lay the groundwork for \u201cpersonhood\u201d bills and ending abortion rights,” Calla Hales, manager of A Preferred Woman<\/a> abortion clinic in Charlotte, North Carolina told<\/a> Bustle.<\/p>\n

“Naturally, you\u2019d expect me to say that as an abortion provider. As a tax paying citizen, I\u2019ll frame it this way: Frankly, it\u2019s fraud. A potential life cannot have assets. It cannot work, earn money, or open a bank account (or have one opened for it). … I find it logically impossible and incredibly unethical to fiscally account for a fetus,” Hales added.<\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood<\/a>, which gets over half a billion dollars a year from taxpayers,\u00a0expressed its opposition<\/a> to the move as well, telling CNN that defining a preborn child in the tax code would end up restricting access to abortion.<\/p>\n

“It is absurd that House Republican leaders would use a tax bill to try to advance their agenda to undermine access to safe, legal abortion,” Dana Singiser, Vice President for Public Policy and Government Affairs at Planned Parenthood Action Fund told CNN.<\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood, whose CEO was hired<\/a> for her political organizing skills (not her health care experience, because she had none), has a record of Medicaid fraud<\/a>, covering for child sexual predators<\/a>, selling aborted baby parts, and chose Halloween to tweet an outrageous and eugenics-style message<\/a> to the Black community that abortion is safer for women of color than childbirth. (Incidentally, Planned Parenthood’s founder<\/a> was a known eugenicist<\/a> who once gave a speech before the Ku Klux Klan<\/a>.)<\/p>\n