Two items of interest with respect to pro-life policy are worth noting.
Recognition of the Unborn Child
Currently Section 529 of the IRS code allows individuals to make tax-advantaged contributions to an account intended to save for a child’s future education expenses. H.R. 1 makes modifications to this program, such as including elementary and high school expenses as qualified expenses. The bill recognizes unborn children as eligible designated beneficiaries for 529 accounts. The bill’s definition of an unborn child is as follows:
(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.
This definition is identical to the language in the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (18 USC 1841), which was enacted in 2004 and recognizes that when a criminal attacks a pregnant woman and kills or injures her unborn child there are two victims of that crime.
Restoration of the Adoption Tax Credit
An earlier version of H.R. 1 repealed the adoption tax credit and the tax exclusion for adoption assistance programs. According to Congressional Research Service, 73,951 taxpayers claimed this credit in the last reported year (2014) and the average credit was $4,802 (2013). Data on the use of the tax exclusion for employer adoption assistance programs is not available.
