The House is expected to vote on H.R. 1, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 tomorrow, Thursday November 16th. The tax bill contains a new positive provision related to the unborn.
Under the provision, parents will be permitted to name unborn children as beneficiaries of 529 College Savings Plans, and be able to start saving for their unborn child’s education before the baby is born. This would be the first time the unborn child has been written into the tax code.
The provision has been attacked by pro-abortion groups such as NARAL and Planned Parenthood. Even though this law in no ways deals with abortion, the pro-abortion lobby’s ideology compels it to deny the very existence of unborn human beings in any area of the law.
By the same token, the National Right to Life Committee supports this provision because it recognizes, in at least one area of law, that unborn children are people.
The unborn child is recognized in other places in the code, as in the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (also known as “Laci and Conner’s Law”), enacted in 2004 after a five-year effort led by the National Right to Life Committee. The law recognizes that when a criminal attacks a pregnant woman, and injures or kills both her and her unborn child, he has claimed two human victims.
Additionally, National Right to Life worked to ensure that the House bill restored the long-existing adoption tax credit, and applauds House leadership for their effort.
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Adoption affirms the unborn child’s right to life, allowing each baby to enter the world as a blessing for another family. While in effect, the adoption tax credit has served as an effective way to encourage adoption by easing the often steep financial expense that can be incurred by adopting a child.
The pro-life movement has long promoted adoption as an alternative for single mothers facing crisis pregnancy situations, offering them a viable alternative to abortion. Keeping the adoption process easier for families who want to adopt can offer encouragement to those mothers considering adoption as an alternative.
LifeNews Note: Jennifer Popik is a medical ethics attorney and the director of the medical ethics department for National Right to Life.
