Tax Bill: Will It Define a Fetus as a Person?
November 21, 2017
Last week in the President’s Corner, we covered how the tax reform bill could potentially eradicate the individual mandate of Obamacare. The bill has an even more surprising twist: it defines the unborn as human beings.
If you were falling asleep while reading the bill, page 93 likely jolted you awake as if you just drank three shots of espresso. You probably didn’t believe your eyes at first. I sure didn’t. Is that pro-life language…in a tax bill, of all things?
Indeed, it is. It reads: “The term ‘unborn child’ means a child in utero…‘child in utero’ means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.”
There you have it. A fetus defined as a “child” and “member of the species homo sapiens”—a human being. Apparently, the bill authors have taken a biology class and know that a fetus is not a mere “clump of cells.” It’s about time our bills reflect the facts of human biology by acknowledging the fetus as a human!
How did Republicans fit pro-life language in among taxes? The tax reform bill allows parents to open a 529 college-savings account (which offers tax breaks) not only for their born children, but for their unborn children as well. Since unborn children can be beneficiaries of the account, the bill also had to define “unborn child,” and that’s how Republicans arrived at putting pro-life language in the bill.
Finally, a tax code can apply to unborn children: “A child in the womb is just as human as you or I yet, until now, the U.S. tax code has failed to acknowledge the unborn child – all while granting tax breaks for those seeking an abortion under the pretense of ‘healthcare,’” said Jeanne Mancini of March for Life.
Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America are not happy, so we must be doing something right! Planned Parenthood tweeted their disapproval that the bill includes an attempt to restrict abortion, and NARAL tweeted, “Leave it to the GOP to figure out how to stick language that would help them pass an abortion ban into a tax bill.” You know what, NARAL? I’ll take that as compliment to the GOP. Leave it to us to figure out a way to promote life and truth in all bills, even a tax bill!
NARAL continued their tweet rant: “The GOP’s relentless obsession with advancing its dangerous anti-choice ideology knows no boundaries and no common sense.” No, NARAL. We don’t have a relentless obsession with advancing an ideology, but we are obsessed with valuing human life, inside and outside the womb.
I’m proud that conservatives have a relentless obsession with defending and protecting human life.
In Service,
Gary Gates
President and Founder
Colorado Citizens Coalition