Another secret in the tax bill

The House tax bill would allow 529 accounts to be opened explicitly for unborn children. That provision says:

Nothing shall prevent an unborn child from being treated as a designated beneficiary or an individual under this section. The term "unborn child" means a 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.

The provision is "disguised" in the sense that adding the unborn child language doesn’t enable savers to do anything they can’t already do for future children -- a point U.S. Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., raised during a hearing. Expectant parents and other savers can already open a 529 in anyone’s name, including their own, and later change the beneficiary -- for instance, after a child is born.

[...]

The sole purpose of this provision is to codify the radical, anti-choice idea that life begins at conception into law and begin the process of banning abortion altogether ….This is the first time ‘personhood’ language has made it into tax reform legislation, leaving the door open for future laws to use the same, ideological definition of when life begins …

[...]

Ryan’s office referred us to a statement about the provision issued by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. The statement says in part:

Today, our tax code doesn’t recognize children with eyes, ears, noses, arms, legs, fingers, and heartbeats as children just because they haven’t yet left the womb ….So our tax plan adds clear language that allows parents to start a college savings account before their son or daughter is born by explicitly and unambiguously declaring these sons and daughters "unborn children."

[...]

Two experts, echoing others, told us that inserting an unborn child definition into federal law is part of a broader strategy to limit abortion rights in the future.

[...]

Such efforts are aimed, she said, "at building an impression that everywhere in federal law the embryo and fetus is considered morally and perhaps legally equal to a live-born child.

  Politifact

This begs the question: will people eventually be required to take out insurance on any fetuses in the family? Oh, and another: can people declare a fetus on their tax filing as a dependent?

I'm guessing that there are some ways this inclusion is going to affect families that haven't shown up yet, and not just something they want to do eventually.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

??  Haven't seen this elsewhere:

FURTHER UPDATE:

Oh, I like this.