True, but the House wont always be Blue.
Altho I doubt if Congress would actually pass a law banning abortion, a GOP congress could very well pass a law making it illegal to cross state lines to get one.
This is all just 21st Century prohibition and it will all play out the same.
I’m sure there are plenty of elected R officials who are personally pro choice. Like the Bushes. They vote pro life, and that’s all the party cares about. Was the same way with Prohibition. The officials could drink privately, keep getting their supply, so long as they voted Dry.
It’ll work in Kansas. In cities it’ll be unenforcable. There will be the same corruption involved, prosecute some minority woman, look the other way with white ® women. It’s all going to be a replay.
Which will occur if trump is re-elected, so it can happen here.
Kinda like an abortion equivalent of the Mann Act.
One thing that hasn’t been discussed so far: how are we going to handle abortions in cases of medical necessity? The religious right has always insisted that they would be okay with abortions in cases of rape, incest, and where the mother’s life is endangered if the pregnancy is carried to term. They have already exposed themselves as hypocrites on the rape front. That goes all the way back to Todd Akin and “forcible rape” way back in 2012. After Kavanaugh was confirmed, the Georgia legislature introduced a bill forcing women who are raped to carry those pregnancies to term; they only backed down once the various TV shows and movies that have begun filming there in recent years gave strong hints that they would be picking up stakes if such legislation was passed.
Now, regarding medically necessary abortions, I can see a situation cropping up similar to what happened in California when they legalized marijuana, but only for medicinal use. Some enterprising doctor could potentially make a cottage industry out of giving medical exemptions to women to have abortions. Of course, the other aspect would be to ban those types of abortions entirely, but that opens up a whole other can of worms for the anti-choice side. God help them once the first woman is denied an abortion she needs and dies; her face would be in every campaign ad in the next election cycle.
How do you think Churches are tax exempt?
Gifts are tax exempt so most of their income is tax free anyway. Unrelated income is taxed. The unrelated business income tax- UBIT for short.
Some states do make Churches (and often similar charitable institutions) exempt from property taxes. But not on a Federal level. Some states allow Churches, etc to purchase stuff sales tax exempt.
You’d run into two issues “The power to tax is the power to destroy” with some churches getting tax breaks and others not. And- what defines a 'church"? Would this have to apply to all charitable institutions? All non-profits? Oh, and a third- the First Ad.
Really, people love to spount comments like "Maybe it’s time to revoke the tax-exempt status for all churches." without thinking it out.
Also note- not all churches are anti-abortion, and quite a few are technically anti-abortion but dont make a big deal over it. It is just the Evangelicals, which are minority.
I expect that the pills needed for medication abortions will be available through the underground.
And for those saying women will travel to get abortions, that’s already necessary, as in some states, abortions are available in only a very few locations. For some, the travel cost is a barrier.
Eliminate their 501©(3) status and their property tax exemptions. That’s a start.
The religious right has been trying to legislate abortion providers into extinction for a couple of generations, By Any Means Necessary. This, despite the fact that Planned Parenthood – to cite one example – lists abortions as <10% of their patient visits.
So would going after the tax-exempt status (501©(3)) status of churches paint them all with the same broad brush ? Maybe. But maybe it’s time to put this institution on defense and put their moderate ‘brethren’ in a position to take more vocal positions on the issue.
And I’m not all that concerned with the slippery slope issue.
Probably not. Tax law is written to be uniform. If all certified religions currently get tax breaks, why would all not be uniformly taxed (at least ostensibly)? Certification as an actual religion can be just as unfair.
That would depend on how the tax law would be written.
No.
Yes.
There are still some Republicans who are Republicans for the financial/economy parts of the platform rather than the social ones. Some of them are pro-choice, OK with gay and transgender people, and otherwise socially liberal.
Not over the top at all - that actually happened in the US up through the 1970’s. No reason it couldn’t happen again.
Not always.
I’ll also point out that the official position of the Catholic Church is no direct abortions for any reason (there are some allowed procedures where, although a fetus is destroyed, that is not the primary reason for doing them).
You are mistaken if you think every one agrees on “rape, incest, or the life of the mother” as a justification for killing an embryo.
No, I did not mean to imply that I thought everyone agreed on those exemptions for abortion. The religious right in the past has at least indicated at times they would be willing to accept those justifications for abortion, presumably to try to mollify those who may not like elective abortions but would be willing to allow the exceptions mentioned. The backtracking that the right has made in recent years regarding rape (as detailed in the examples I gave) has indicated (to me, at least) that those justifications were lip service, and that the true goal is and always has been to outlaw abortion entirely for any reason.
This thread mentioned Prohibition earlier, and I recall a statement from Ken Burns documentary on why so many politicians were willing to vote in favor of it. Basically, they made incorrect assumptions regarding the aims of the prohibitionists, assuming that the prohibitionists only intended to outlaw hard liquor like whiskey, but would leave things like beer and wine alone. They then voted for the 18th amendment under that presumption.
Once the amendment was passed, Congress than passed the Volstead Act as the means of actually enforcing that amendment. When that law was passed, it was revealed that, nope, the prohibitionists meant ALL alcohol was a no go. Of course, we observe how that worked out.
Overturning Roe v. Wade could lead to an absolutely chaotic scenario regarding differing jurisdictions. If anything, it would likely make the situation even more politicized than it already is (assuming that is even possible).
So, you’d also eliminate the tax free status for all Non-profits then? Sierra Club, ACLU, animal welfare, conservation groups, etc? Not to mention all the churches that arent part of the Religious Right?
And again, most of their income is from donations, and they arent taxable.
As I said … no. I’m not worried about the slippery slope argument here.
What happens to that if you revoke their 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status ?
You’d certainly run into it if you let the Sierra Club be tax free and a Church not.
It isnt “all churches”- it’s all non-profits.
And of course they dont make a profit, so what would the tax be on?
There’d be no gain income tax wise.
Certainly the First Amendment. Unless, again, you got rid of all non-profit tax exemptions= hospitals, Universities, Charitable institutions, etc.
Gifts arent taxable, they have nothing whatsoever to do with 501©(3) tax-exempt status. If we made gifts taxable, there’d be hell to pay- your fiance paying taxes on that ring, you paying taxes on all the stuff your parents gave you while you were under there roof, taxes on Christmas presents, easter baskets, etc. Really stupid.
If you did revoke their 501©(3) tax-exempt status ?
They’d have to file a tax return showing no profit thus no taxes.
We have had this discussion before, and except for local exemptions for property taxes (not in every state, and so you’d have to get all those states to agree) the amount of extra tax income would be small.
I’m not sure that’s true. The impact is to the person making the donation – whether or not it’s tax-deductible. I think tax-deductibility would probably have a big influence on a church’s revenue.
It’s really more about challenging the 501(c)(3) status of churches.
I’m not sure on what basis you make that assumption, or any other assumption about what effect a revocation of 501(c)(3) might have on their solvency.
That isn’t necessarily the goal … just as “the health of the woman” isn’t necessarily the goal of all the anti-choice TRAP legislation that gets proposed.
The rules for churches and their 501(c)(3) status are pretty particular.
And maybe … just maybe … they’re due to be revisited.
Is there the political will ? Oh … I rather doubt it. But that doesn’t mean the idea should be summarily abandoned.
To add …
The 1stA also guarantees a free press, but 501©(3) isn’t automatically accorded to any media outlet that applies.
To cite one well-known example: the LDS Church contributed to, and participated in, California’s Proposition 8 legislation that banned same-sex marriage.
Their claim – dubious – was that their participation flew under the IRS limit for “substantial lobbying activity.”
How hard would it be to lower that bar … dramatically ?
Why did this thread get sidetracked?
So you wish to eliminate the tax deduction for contributions. Sure, that would hurt those churches- but not put them out of business. It would also hurt the ACLU, animal orgs, other churches who arent anti-abortion, food kitchens and such for the homeless, environmental orgs, and all those other orgs who assist millions of America daily.
This is a despicable position to take. To inconvenience one small group of churches that you dont like, because they dont agree with your political position, you are willing to hurt hundreds of thousands of other orgs and churches, and the tens of millions of Americans who are helped by them. For all the harm the evangelicals do the ACLU and the environmental orgs alone do ten times more good. What a selfish position to take. You’d have Americans starving, and the environment hurt for this.
Non-profit orgs- dont make a profit. That is why they are called a NON-PROFIT. You pay taxes on your what… PROFITS. Geez, it is so hard debating with people who dont have the smallest knowledge of the tax laws and the irreparable great harm this would cause. I was a Officer of the US Treasury for 20 years. I know this stuff. You- clearly- don’t.
Yes they are. Note that they absolutely prohibited from participating in any political campaign activity. The Churches themselves do not participate in such activity. The members or leaders of the churches may do so, of course. So you want to punish the orgs that are absolutely prohibited, that dont do what you dislike right? Geez, it is so hard debating with people who dont have the smallest knowledge of the tax laws.
DavidNRockies
Maybe it’s time to revoke the tax-exempt status for all churches.
Thanks. The next question is why are others cooperating with an attempt at hijacking the thread.