Christians respond also to GOP tax changes on adoption and pulpit politics.
Christians don’t often look to tax bills for pro-life measures, but the latest GOP plan includes a celebrated new provision for expectant parents that recognizes their belief that life begins at conception.
Under the proposed tax plan released this week, “nothing shall prevent an unborn child from being treated as a designated beneficiary” of a 529 college savings account, legislators wrote.
Pro-life advocates see the move as federal acknowledgement of a baby’s life prior to its birth. (Under the current tax code, a person must have a Social Security number in order to be a 529 beneficiary, and babies are not assigned a number until after they are born.)
Christian pro-life leaders disagreed over the extent to which the language furthers the pro-life cause; March for Life president Jeanne Mancini called it a “huge leap forward for an antiquated tax code,” while Susan B. Anthony List spokesperson Mallory Quigley said it’s a “a small increment in the momentum that we’re building to ensure that one day every child is welcomed and protected under the law.”
Mancini also said, “We hope this is the first step in expanding the child tax credit to include unborn children.”
March for Life Action said that the change was not something their organization had lobbied for. Pro-choice groups including NARAL Pro-Choice America criticized the move as ideologically driven, backwards, and nonsensical.
CBN reported that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) also recently acknowledged life in the womb in its strategic plan starting in 2018, which states that HHS “accomplishes its mission through programs and initiatives that cover a wide spectrum of activities, ...
from
http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/YkCNL2oapY4/tax-reform-unborn-529s-adoption-johnson-amendment.html
No comments:
Post a Comment