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GOP lawmakers in Michigan are pushing for a tax credit for unborn fetuses twelve weeks or older. Democrats are calling the proposed bill both “absurd” and an attempt to create a personhood bill, which would give rights to the unborn — and therefore make all abortion, and in some cases, contraception, illegal.
Noting the Republicans eliminated tax credits for almost 2.5 million children last year, The Guardian UK reported:
One of the main sponsors of the foetus tax credit bill, Jud Gilbert, a Republican representative of Algonac, said the rationale behind it was to recognise that mothers have additional bills to pay.
“You’re recognizing the fact that people have additional expenses, another person to take care of,” he told told Mlive. “Money saved there could be contributed to doctor’s bills and all kinds of things.”
Gilbert said the move would speed up a tax exemption that parents only get when a child is born.
However, tax exemptions for children and families have been cut in the state, to the extent that another 9,000 children have been forced into poverty as a result, according to policy groups.
Progress Michigan, a progressive watchdog, said it was a “sneaky way to pass personhood legislation.”
“It’s clear Lansing Republicans have the wrong priorities by wasting time on these extreme bills,” said Zack Pohl, executive director of Progress Michigan.
“This is really a backdoor way of passing extreme personhood legislation, which has been rejected by voters in states across the country. Even worse, this would create a special new tax credit for unborn fetuses, after Lansing Republicans eliminated the tax credit for living, breathing children last year. It’s time for our elected leaders to get their priorities straight.”
Earlier this year Arizona’s Republican Governor Jan Brewer signed a law making women legally pregnant two weeks before conception.
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