A bill introduced by Republican lawmakers would raise taxes for women and small businesses that invest in health insurance covering abortions. To do this, the measure would change the tax code, which means the IRS would suddenly become abortion cops responsible for investigating whether women who had abortions had been victims of rape or incest, or that a terminated pregnancy endangered their health (the only exceptions to the tax). Let me repeat that: Women would have to prove to the IRS that they were rape or incest victims.
In the House Ways and Means Committee hearing on H.R. 3 Wednesday, the nonpartisan Joint Tax Committee’s chief of staff Thomas Barthold testified that because the bill bans using tax credits or deductions to pay for abortions or insurance, a woman who used such a benefit would have to prove, if audited, that her abortion “fell under the rape/incest/life-of-the-mother exception, or that the health insurance she had purchased did not cover abortions.” Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) asked Barthold point blank “if a woman were audited, would IRS agents be at her house demanding court documents or affidavits proving that her pregnancy was the result of rape or incest?” Barthold confirmed what former IRS official Marcus Owens told Baumann — a woman would have to give “contemporaneous written documentation” that it was “incest, or rape, or [her] life was in danger” that compelled her abortion.
Who knows what “contemporaneous written documentation” means, but I doubt a woman’s notarized word or a doctor’s note from Planned Parenthood wouldn’t be enough.
Mother Jones has another great write-up of the bill over here.
Curtsy to Jen in Madison.
But…but… think of all the JOBS this will create!
(fuck the GOP)
Government oppression of the very worst kind. They really are the Repugnant Party.
You know, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. And I’m not the kind of feminist that sees a woman hater in every man.
But fuck, these people HATE us. Our autonomy, our sexuality, US.
There is one, and only one benefit to this: TSA agents can breathe a sigh of relief that abortion cops might take their place for Least Popular New Jobs.
@4, Thank you for making me laugh about this!
Tell me again why us liberals haven’t armed ourselves to the teeth and taken the country back by storm…litterally.
No, this is great. I hope they keep getting crazier and crazier. Pretty soon it’s going to get to the point where you can get a laugh just by saying the word “Republican.”
Where do they think of this crap?
@7 Yeah well I prefer they act batshit about something that doesn’t specifically target my gender, thanks 🙂
I say this all the time, but everyone should repost this and talk about it to whomever they can; fuck how unpleasant it is or making people uncomfortable. American women have a voice, something women in many places of the world do not, and it should be our honor and responsibility to not shut up about this until everyone knows what the fucked up Republicans are doing. (And I blame the mealy Dems, too, for giving those Bible bangers inch after inch after inch.)
@8,
Ceausescu’s Romania.
So, let me get this straight.
They want to make sure that people who get abortions don’t get tax deductions for medical expenses. But they still get tax deductions for the contributions they make to their intolerant churches?
I’m in the mood to issue an open invitation to all autonomous, intelligent women. [The menfolk can be part of the second wave, but the women need to escape first.] Please leave the U.S. now. Emigrate to Canada where you won’t have to deal with this – words fail me – idiocy.
The only good thing about all of these insane proposals being considered only a few months into the term is that, as more time passes and even more outrageous ideologies with dire consequences attached are presented, so the term “Republican” should become more mocked and reviled. Uh … in a sensible world. Though there’s no guarantee of that.
I’m pretty sure Jesus didn’t get them pregnant.
I’m not so sure about God the Father, or God the Holy Spigot though … they like to pull a Zeus sometimes.
Hell, why not take it further, all parents of a viable fetus must sign a contract forfeiting the fetus’s right to collective bargaining in the future & then once a child must take some kind of teabaggy oath as a citizen of the United States of Corporate America.
Now THAT’S what I call limited government!
You can pry their patriarchy from their cold, FUCKING INSANE, dead hands.
Fuck. I have a bedroom for my American girl cousins, but it won’t hold them all. Guess the latecomers get the livingroom floor. You may have the hall closet if you need it, Ms. Madrid.
Margaret Atwood nailed this shit in her novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
White males and their subject women folk are trying to keep their numbers up.
@9 You win.
Thanks for picking this up, Cienna–but Friday news doesn’t spread. Come on everyone, repost!
I love being against government intrusion in our lives–unless it’s people who don’t matter, like women and poor people.
Seems that the Republicans are trying to force alternative ways of detecting if people got abortions for the lawful reason or not. Is this a violations of privacy or is this something that GOP needs to push forth? Does the IRS really need to be involved in this on-going political issue?
http://survey.matterofopinion.com/survey…