{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://degette.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/republicans-sneak-anti-abortion-language-into-tax-bill", "Republicans Sneak Anti-Abortion Language Into Tax Bill", "2017-11-06", "2017", "2017-11", "Democrat", "House", "CO", "Diana DeGette", "D000197", "degette.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Republicans slipped anti-abortion language into the draft of the tax reform bill they released on Thursday. The move is part of an effort by the\u00a0Trump administration\u00a0and House\u00a0Republicans\u00a0to define life as beginning at conception, with an eye to rolling back Roe v. Wade.\n\n\tBuried on page 93 of the\u00a0429-page\u00a0tax\u00a0proposal is a provision that would allow\u00a0fetuses\u00a0to be named as beneficiaries of college savings accounts known as 529 plans \u2015 investment vehicles that come with a range of tax breaks.\n\n\tAbortion rights advocates were quick to call out the language. \u201cThis is a back-door attempt to establish personhood from the moment of conception,\u201d Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, said in a\u00a0statement. \u201cThe tax code is no place to define what constitutes an \u2018unborn child.\u2019 What\u2019s next, giving a Social Security number to a zygote?\u201d\u00a0\n\n\tOstensibly, the idea is that parents can get a leg up on saving for their kid\u2019s education before he or she is even born. However, it takes care to define the terms \u201cunborn child\u201d and \u201cchild in utero,\u201d in what appears to be a naked attempt to establish so-called personhood for fetuses, a popular anti-abortion tactic.\n\n\tAbortion foes\u00a0believe\u00a0that 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.\n\n\t\u201cA 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,\u201d Jeanne Mancini, president of the anti-abortion group March for Life, told Politico.\n\n\tThere\u2019s nothing in current law stopping parents from opening a 529 savings account before a child is born, explained Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at\u00a0Bankrate.com, a personal finance site.\u00a0A parent opens the account in his or her own name, and once the baby is born, changes the account beneficiary, he explained. McBride said he did this for one of his sons.\n\n\t\u201cI don\u2019t know how this makes it different,\u201d he said. McBride said at most, the tax reform provision would allow parents to skip the step of naming a new beneficiary. \u201cTaking a nonstop flight instead of changing planes,\u201d he said.\n\t\n\t\tIt\u2019s unclear how the anti-abortion language got into the tax bill. Another\u00a0anti-abortion group, however,\u00a0thanked Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) \u201cfor his leadership on this important effort.\u201d\n\t\n\t\n\t\tThe GOP tax reform plan is still in its early stages, and it\u2019s unclear if the anti-abortion provision will survive. Two\u00a0tax policy groups \u2015 one conservative, one progressive \u2015 declined to speak on the topic with HuffPost.\n\t\n\t\n\t\tParents use the widely popular 529 accounts to sock away money for their kids\u2019 education expenses. The accounts come with a few tax breaks: You pay no tax on interest earned. And, if you use the money for education expenses, you don\u2019t pay taxes when you withdraw the money, either. In some states, you also get a tax deduction for contributing money to a 529 account.\u00a0\n\t\n\t\n\t\tSo-called personhood language also made an appearance in a\u00a0draft strategic plan\u00a0for the Department of Health and Human Services released last month. In a note about the department\u2019s organizational structure, HHS said its mission was to protect \u201cAmericans at every stage of life, beginning at conception.\u201d\n\t\n\t\n\t\tAnd earlier this week, the House held a hearing on a bill that would ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The ban doesn\u2019t have a chance of passing, HuffPost\u2019s Laura Bassett\u00a0reported\u00a0on Tuesday.\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\u201cIt\u2019s time to emancipate every little unborn baby,\u201d\u00a0Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said at the hearing.\n\t\n\t\n\t\tThe draft tax bill also offers a tax break to another of the\u00a0 GOP\u2019s favorite kind of people: corporations. The proposal would reduce the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent.\n\t\n\t\n\t\tActual human children and adults fare less well. The proposal gets rid of an\u00a0adoption tax credit\u00a0and ends popular tax deductions on medical spending and student loan interest. Although, perhaps if fetuses can save for college, kids of the future will rack up less in school debt.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://degette.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/republicans-sneak-anti-abortion-language-into-tax-bill"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.3419399037957191, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}