Using the tax code to attack women

Well, golly gee, look what the Republican-led House of Representatives has done (with the help of 16 Democrats, all of whom ought to be fired by their constituents in the next election):

House Resolution 3 isn’t just your typical, run-of-the-mill “pro-life” move to block abortions for poor women. Usually the “I don’t want my tax dollars to pay for abortions” line is actually about, you know, paying for abortions.

But the Health Care Reform Act already banned paying for abortions. And the Hyde Amendment, which has been attached to every health-care bill coming through the House and Senate since 1976, already specifically bans using federal funds to pay for abortions. (There are exceptions for those cases where rape, incest or the life of the mother are involved.)

H.R. 3 says that you cannot, with your own freakin’ money, buy a rider to your health insurance that will pay to terminate a pregnancy, if you’re using HCRA funds to pay for the basic insurance policy.

With your own money, you can’t buy it.

And it says that you cannot get a health-care expense tax deduction on any policy that includes abortion. And it would deny tax credits to employers who buy health plans for their employees that cover abortion.

These yahoos (and I use that term in the manner intended by Jonathan Swift) are using the tax code to enforce their social agenda.

Next—and a hat tip to David Waldman of Congress Matters and the Daily Kos—they’ll be saying we can’t use tax money on roads that might be used to drive to a clinic that provides abortions, or we shouldn’t allow the U.S. Mint to print money that might be used to pay for one.

Basically, this means that the tax code can be used by whichever party has a majority to penalize anything they don’t like—no matter how legal it is, even if you’re doing it with your own money.

And the GOP even found a way to redefine rape. Rape is only rape if it involves force; if you’re just drugged or coerced, that doesn’t count. Initially, the GOP dropped this language from the bill after public outcry. It’s back in.

So, gosh, the exception for rape will translate to “If you’re poor, you’d better have bruises and broken bones to prove you were really raped.”

Compiled from Kel’s Hot Flash.