Taxes and Abortion Update I

Updating ‘Taxes and Abortion’ Part II, there’s some good and some bad

The good news is that, at least one Senate committee defeated a move to further restrict access to abortion services by insisting that no money provided under the legislation could be used to pay “any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion.” In other words, you couldn’t choose an insurance plan that covered abortion services if a cent of federal money was involved. While this was defeated, there’s still restrictive language in the bill. In other words, Dems didn’t take the opportunity to challenge the 1975 Hyde Amendment (discussed in ‘Taxes and Abortion’ posts below) that bans federal money being spent on abortions.

The bad news is that the same committee approved reinstating abstinence only education programmes. Of course, there’s a long way to go before this is law, so there’s still hope. The New York Times has a good editorial on the issue.

Meanwhile, on one of our other favourite topics, ballot language for a “personhood” amendment (the fertilized egg is-equal-to-or-greater-than a woman) in Florida was approved.

According to Feminist Newswire, the ballot measure would amend the state constitution to say that "The word 'person' and 'natural person' apply to all human beings, irrespective of age, race, health, function, condition of physical and/or mental dependency and/or disability, or method of reproduction, from the beginning of biological development of that human being."

As we’ve discussed here, these personhood amendments  are becoming increasingly popular in the U.S., and even though they tend to lose at the ballot box, they are apparently great fund-raising tools. (If you haven’t checked out Mikhaela Reid’s cartoon ‘Egg Patrol’, do it now!)

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