The good news for parents to be in Michigan: Republican state lawmakers want to give a tax credit for fetuses beginning at 12 weeks’ gestation. The bad news: Last year, the state eliminated tax cuts for children who were already born.

“You’re recognizing the fact that people have additional expenses, another person to take care of,” said state Rep. Jud Gilbert, evidently blind to the fact that people who have children also have additional costs. “Money saved there could be contributed to doctor’s bills and all kinds of things.”

Cutting the tax credits for Michigan children, by the way, forced an additional 9,000 into poverty.

The Guardian: If the measure, outlined in two bills heard by the house tax policy committee on Tuesday, becomes law it would be the first of its kind in the US. Critics said the proposal was “absurd” and described it as a backdoor way of trying to pass “personhood” legislation which would give rights to an embryo and crack down on abortion. The Michigan house of representatives this year passed part of a three-bill package that would restrict access to abortion and heavily regulate clinic that performs them. Republican leaders have come under fire for banning a Democrat from speaking after she said the word “vagina” in a debate on an abortion bill earlier this year. Read more

— Posted by Tracy Bloom.