August 21, 2020

Over 100 U.S. Legislators Ask Sec. of Treasury to End Tax Breaks for Abortion

Photo credit: Jonathan Cutrer / Flickr
Many members of Congress are taking a stand against the IRS subsidizing abortion procedures. On August 12, over 100 U.S. legislators signed a letter addressed to the Secretary of the United States Treasury Steve Mnuchin. The letter asks his department “to take swift action to issue new regulations to protect innocent human life by ending tax breaks for abortion under the guise of medical care.”

Liberty Counsel writes that the IRS changed its definition of "medical care" following the passage of Roe v. Wade to include abortion. This decision causes some IRS tax breaks to effectively subsidize abortion procedures. Abortion simply is not healthcare, and the congress members' letter to Treasury Secretary Mnuchin reflects this sentiment.

“[W]hen the deduction for medical care was first enacted in the Revenue Act of 1942, abortion was a crime in virtually every state. However, shortly after Roe v. Wade, the IRS imposed on the then-three-decades-old statute a meaning of ‘medical care’ that would have been unthinkable to the 77th Congress that enacted it,” the lawmakers wrote.

The IRS considers “medical care” to be any procedures performed “for the purpose of affecting any structure or function of the body.” In their letter, the legislators noted that "long-standing regulations" say that medical care should “be confined strictly to expenses incurred primarily for the prevention or alleviation of a physical or mental defect or illness.”

Since abortion is an elective procedure which the legislators say, “has nothing to do with ‘the prevention or alleviation of a physical or mental defect or illness,” their letter further notes:

“[T]he primary purpose of an abortion… is not to affect the body of the mother, but, tragically, to destroy the body of the unborn child growing within her…. An abortion is considered ‘successful’ not simply when the pregnancy is terminated (since childbirth also does this), but only when the result is a dead unborn child.”

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