Have they really thought this through?
If Mike Huckabee and a 20-year-old Colorado woman get their way, a Colorado constitutional amendment would guarantee that every fertilized egg is a person.
There's all manner of astonishing possibilities here. For one thing, a fetus could have a Social Security number. A fetus could buy, sell, invest and go broke -- all from the womb. Heck, we could have identity theft victims who aren't even born yet.
For another, this amendment has to be retroactive -- how could you discriminate against the post-born by denying them the same rights as the pre-born, whose lives would by law also have begun at conception?
We'd all celebrate the Year of Two Birthdays. Our birthdates would change; we'd have to check different horoscopes. Twenty-year-olds could drink legally nine months sooner than they can now. Baby boomers could start retiring nine months sooner.
And women could test this amendment through the IRS and the federal 1040 form.
You could say you've missed a menstrual cycle -- gosh, you must be pregnant! You get to claim a fetal child dependent -- and the tax credit -- on your taxes. And then, within a matter of days, there might be a spontaneous miscarriage; that happens in about half of all early pregnancies, according to the NIH and U.S. National Library of Medicine. By the Colorado Human Life Amendment, that was still a full person, and you, the parent, would be entitled to a full tax deduction.
What are the feds going to do, go through your trash to look for the EPT test to see whether you're lying?
Don't kid yourself -- any government that could pass this amendment could go through your trash, and a whole lot worse, to enforce it.
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Posted February 26, 2008 | 11:49 AM (EST)