By Kevin Fobbs
Clash Daily Guest Contributor
As the year 2012 closes, there are millions of parents across the nation who could be realizing a tax break for their unborn child if their state follows Michigan’s lead, where they are also considering a similar measure. For several weeks Michigan GOP legislators have been seriously contemplating granting a tax credit for parents of fetuses that are twelve weeks or older, according to the publication, the New Civil Rights Movement.
The liberals in the state legislature immediately jumped on the granting of an economic benefit for many cash-strapped parents who may be hit with higher taxes next year. They, like many parents across the nation, are worried about the Congress and the president being hopelessly deadlocked in “fiscal cliff negotiations” that will possibly add an additional $2,500 – $3,500 tax bill to their household. Why are Democrats worried about granting a tax break for middle-class families? Does it make sense to you?
In fact, millions of families that are counting their bills and seeing that it is becoming more and more difficult to make their shrinking paychecks stretch would benefit tremendously from a tax break for their unborn child.
Is this legislation extreme as many liberals have claimed, who are concerned about the possibility that an unborn child just might be granted “personhood rights” rights? The director of Progress Michigan, Zack Pohl, called the pro-family legislation a back door way of, “passing extreme personhood legislation.”
How can it be extreme to grant a young struggling family the right to take advantage of the tax system that could grant them the benefit of putting a little more in their budget to pay for items necessary for the support of their expected child?
With the fortieth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court Roe V. Wade decision coming in May of 2013, it seems more than ironic, that these same anti-life, pro-choice forces are looking for yet another way to deprive a mother and father of a benefit of bringing a life into the world.
Examine the state of law in America, concerning the status of an unborn child being carried in the womb of a mother, and you determine if granting tax privileges for an unborn child is wrong.
An unborn child is considered a person under the law if the mother is attacked and the attack results in the death of the unborn child. The laws which give legal human status to a murdered unborn child are called “feticide” laws. As a matter of law, the fetal homicide exists as a separate and distinct criminal act which exists aside from an attack and harm to the mother.
Therefore, the unborn child already has legal status, and that legal status is protected by law in 38 states in America. Twenty three states go even further in granting legal right-to-life protection from harm for the unborn child. These states provide, “fetal homicide laws that apply to the earliest stages of pregnancy including ‘any state of gestation,’ or conception,” according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
So where is the debate and where is the harm in granting a mother and father a tax benefit for their child, in any state, be it Texas, Ohio, Montana, Tennessee, Kentucky or any other? Abortion activists have claimed that granting “special rights” to the unborn child would take away a mother’s flexibility to strip an unborn child’s life from its body as the Roe v Wade decision permits. How ironic that the mother can harm and impede the life of her child.
The congress has already set the table for protecting the unborn child’s right to be defended against harm, with passage of the 2004 Unborn Victims of Violence Act. When President George W. Bush signed the legislation into law, it recognized:
A “child in utero” as a legal victim, if he or she is injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines “child in utero” as “a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.”
If a child is considered a legal victim and is, “a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb,” then why shouldn’t the 49 other states in the nation, and Michigan, take the next logical step and pass a law granting parents the right to a tax break for their unborn child?
Make 2013 a year of celebration for the rights of the unborn and the rights of parents who are willing to take the next step forward in preventing the deaths of 50 million other “ members of the species Homo sapiens.”
Kevin Fobbs has more than 35 years of wide-ranging experience as a community and tenant organizer, Legal Services outreach program director, public relations consultant, business executive, gubernatorial and presidential appointee, political advisor, widely published writer, and national lecturer. Kevin is co-chair and co-founder of AC-3 (American-Canadian Conservative Coalition) that focuses on issues on both sides of the border between the two countries.
