Don’t be fooled by the kabuki surrounding Rubio’s threat to vote “No” on the Tax bill. Look at what he is holding out for. “A greater expansion of the child tax credit.” That part of the Senate bill sought to redefine the rights of the unborn.
Here is the original language (from version that passed the Senate)
SEC. 11028. UNBORN CHILDREN ALLOWED AS 529 ACCOUNT BENEFICIARIES.
(a) In General.—Section 529(e) is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
“(6) TREATMENT OF UNBORN CHILDREN.—
“(A) IN GENERAL.—Nothing shall prevent an unborn child from being treated as a designated beneficiary or an individual under this section.
“(B) UNBORN CHILD.—For purposes of this paragraph—
“(i) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘unborn child’ means a child in utero.
“(ii) CHILD IN UTERO.—The term ‘child in utero’ means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.”.
(b) Effective Date.—The amendment made by this section shall apply to contributions made after December 31, 2017.
That amendment is buried in SEC. 1202. CONSOLIDATION OF EDUCATION SAVINGS RULES.
If you had searched the bill for “abortion” “fetus” “contraception” or “reproductive rights” you would never find this. But if you searched for “unborn” there it is.
This was offered in Senate Amendment 1842 Who offered the amendment? Marco Rubio.
Note that currently, it is ALREADY possible to set up 529 plans for unborn children. This is not news.
Parents who want to start saving for an unborn child's college tuition typically tackle the social security number problem in one of two ways. "Some parents open a 529 plan before the baby is born in their own name and transfer the gifts there," says Pradel. "After the baby is born and they receive a social security number, they then change the beneficiary of the 529 plan to the child."
The other way parents handle the social security number problem is to leave gifts received from a baby shower or other event in a GradSave account until the baby is born … and open a 529 plan in the baby's name once the child has a social security number, then transfer the gifts.
So why the change? And of all the many elements in the amendment, why focus on just this one? And what is it about this that makes it worth fighting to the bitter end?
It redefines “individual” and further blurs the definition of “child” in ways that allow banning abortion and contraception.
Here’s the problem.
The sleight of hand is redefining “in utero.” In Utero is well defined clinically. It means “in the uterus.” That is not a magical place. That is not a poorly defined anatomical region, like “the belly” or the “the head bone” or “on top” — none of which are anatomically correct terms.
You say something is in utero after the fertilized egg (zygote) has undergone mitosis to form a blastomere, and the blastomere has successfully implanted in the uterus. This marks the moment the woman carrying the fertilized egg is actually pregnant. The zygote now has a chance to develop into an embryo and the embryo has a chance to develop into a fetus. The fetus now has a chance to reach term and be delivered as a baby.
This trick of redefining the terms is not new. Fetus and embryo and child have long been conflated. They are not the same. Not by a long shot. Unless you are trying to muddy the waters and claim “all life is sacred” regardless of how you define it.
But it gets worse.
It is vague and confusing to redefine “in utero” using the non-technical and antiquated term “womb” to describe where the “child” is. Why do I say that? Simple.
You probably think eggs are fertilized in the womb. That is true. But the proper biological explanation is eggs are fertilized in the fallopian tubes. That means the egg is fertilized (goes from oocyte to zygote) THEN the zygote undergoes divisions to become a blastomere and the blastomere implants in the uterus to start pregnancy.
However, according to the amendment of 11028 (6)(B) ii
CHILD IN UTERO.—The term ‘child in utero’ means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.”
That means ANY stage of development ANYWHERE in the womb. That includes a zygote in the fallopian tube. If you go back and look at the actual Supreme Court Decision, (Burwell v. Hobby Lobby) , that is exactly the argument made by Hobby Lobby to redefine contraceptives like IUDs as abortafacients. As Alito noted, the core of the case revolved around the classification of FDA APPROVED CONTRACEPTIVES.
Although many of the required, FDA-approved methods of contraception work by preventing the fertilization of an egg, four of those methods (those specifically at issue in these cases) may have the effect of preventing an already fertilized egg from developing any further by inhibiting its attachment to the uterus.
[emphasis added]
The killer line is buried in a footnote written by Alito (footnote 7 on page 9 of the opinion, page 15 in the PDF)
7
Online at http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/byaudience/forwomen/freepublications/ucm313215.htm. The owners of the companies involved in these cases and others who believe that life begins at conception regard these four methods as causing abortions, but federal regulations, which define pregnancy as beginning at implantation, see, e.g., 62Fed. Reg. 8611 (1997); 45 CFR §46.202(f) (2013), do not so classify them.
In other words, Alito sides with belief over fact, with superstition over science. The federal regulations he is citing as if they were opinions at odds with the opinions of the Hahns are not opinions. They are the result of medical professionals and scientists working in their area of expertise to define the mechanism of action of certain contraceptives.
But none of that matters if the “child” and “the womb” are redefined as Rubio tried to do with this amendment. And here is how that all comes together.
Section 11028 (6)(A) is clear:
IN GENERAL.—Nothing shall prevent an unborn child from being treated as a designated beneficiary or an individual under this section.
I can see the banners outside Planned Parenthood clinics already proclaiming:
What part of “nothing shall prevent” don’t you get?!
Make no mistake, this is a backdoor approach to banning contraceptives along with abortions at all stages of pregnancy. The fact Rubio is willing to go to the mat for this single amendment which doesn’t expand anything currently provided under law for educational tax credits is a huge tell. The fact he is playing this as a “tax credit for the working poor” is the sort of cynical bullshit we have come to expect from these scumbags. The fact the compliant media goes along shows how lazy they are.