Huffington Post reports:
“Republicans slipped anti-abortion language into the draft of the tax reform bill they released on Thursday. … Buried on page 93 of the 429-page tax proposal is a provision that would allow fetuses to be named as beneficiaries of college savings accounts known as 529 plans … ‘This is a back-door attempt to establish personhood from the moment of conception,’ Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, said in a statement. …
“Ostensibly, the idea is that parents can get a leg up on saving for their kid’s education before he or she is even born. However, it takes care to define the terms ‘unborn child’ and ‘child in utero,’ in what appears to be a naked attempt to establish so-called personhood for fetuses, a popular anti-abortion tactic.
“Abortion foes believe that if fetuses were legally considered people, then abortion would have to be outlawed. State and federal legislation attempting to classify fertilized eggs, human embryos and fetuses as people has failed repeatedly over the years. The tax reform provision appears to be a sideways attempt at something similar.”
Read story here.