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The House is to vote this week on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and tucked in the legislation is language intended to advance an anti-choice agenda.

The House bill includes a that an 鈥渦nborn child鈥� can be designated as a beneficiary for 529 college saving accounts, defining 鈥渦nborn child鈥� as a 鈥渃hild in utero鈥� at 鈥渁ny stage of development.鈥�

This isn鈥檛 about making college savings plans more accessible 鈥� people start these savings accounts in their own names before they have children and transfer them to their kids later. This is about laying the foundation for attacks on a woman鈥檚 constitutionally protected right to abortion.

Lawmakers in Congress are now attempting to use a tax bill to advance an assault on women鈥檚 constitutional rights.

The reason this provision has been included is to incorporate language into federal law aimed at undermining Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision on abortion rights. It鈥檚 part of a larger strategy by opponents of abortion rights to chip away at the decision by establishing 鈥渇etal personhood.鈥� In fact, opponents of abortion rights have already publicly the provision as an important step in their agenda.

Those who want to overturn Roe have been pushing to establish fetal personhood for years, through legislation at both the and levels. Voters on state ballot referendums personhood measures that would ban abortion, but anti-choice activists are also attempting to language that reinforces the notion of fetal personhood into law wherever they can.

So this approach is nothing new. What is new is that lawmakers in Congress are now attempting to use a tax bill to advance this assault on women鈥檚 constitutional rights.

This may be because supporters of 鈥減ersonhood鈥� measures have prominent champions in Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Paul Ryan, who both have cosponsored . At the same time, the Trump administration has tried to undermine reproductive choice every chance it gets, from reinstituting the global gag rule to trying to hold pregnant women in immigration detention facilities hostage if they seek to obtain abortion care.

It鈥檚 perhaps not surprising that anti-choice proponents would use any vehicle 鈥� including the tax bill 鈥� to subvert the constitutional rights of women. But this attack is wrong, and the provision must be removed.