Alabama Senator Has Introduced A Bill That Requires Child Support Payments To Start At Date Of Conception
Is the bill really intended to help moms?
Omar Lopez / Unsplash On Friday, May 9, 2024, Senator Katie Britt announced her sponsorship of a bill called the More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed Act (MOMS Act). The co-sponsors of the bill are Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Kevin Cramer.
According to a press release from Senator Britt, the MOMS Act “would provide critical support to women during typically challenging phases of motherhood — prenatal, postpartum, and early childhood development — and bolster access to resources and assistance to help mothers and their children thrive.”
The Alabama Senator’s bill requires child support payments to start at the date of conception.
While this might seem like it supports moms, in actuality, it’s harmful.
It denies pregnant people access to the concept of personhood, instead relegating personhood to a developing, in-utero fetus.
The MOMS Act contains three provisions framed as a way to offer moms more holistic support from pregnancy through postpartum. Yet reading between the lines of the MOMS Act reveals a sinister reality for pregnant women, one where they lose agency over their bodies and their futures.
Title I of the MOMS Act seeks to establish a “Federal Clearinghouse of Resources for Pregnant Moms,” which would require the Department of Health and Human Services to set up a website titled Pregnancy.gov, complete with “relevant public and private resources available to pregnant women within their zip code and surrounding areas.”
While more resources for pregnant people should be made accessible across the country, under Senator Britt’s legislation, the provisions are sneakily restrictive, as they’d fund pregnancy support centers, also known as crisis centers, which push an anti-choice agenda, along with “licensed private child placement agencies.”
Dominic Blignaut / Unsplash
A bill pushing extreme and overt government surveillance is hugely divorced from what the Republican Party claims to be. After all, what happened to the idea of independence, self-governance, and keeping laws off people’s bodies?
As Shannon Watts noted in a tweet, Senator Britt’s bill wants a federal database of pregnant women yet opposes a federal database for gun owners, a move that puts women, children, and everyone who exists in a public space in harm’s way.
Title II of Senator Britt’s bill is designed for “Improving Access to Pre- and Post-Natal Resources,” in name only.
According to the MOMS Act’s own text, the bill would establish “a grant program for non-profit entities to support, encourage, and assist women in carrying their pregnancies to term; and to care for their babies after birth.”
“Prospective grantees would be barred from performing, inducing, referring for, or counseling in favor of abortions, nor can such grantee provide financial support to any other entity that conducts the aforementioned pro-abortion-related activities.”
The MOMS Act seems to support moms on a financial and practical level, but in reality, it seeks to control women's choices.
Title III of the MOMS Act would “require states to apply child support obligations to the time period during pregnancy.”
The provision would be retroactively applicable, decided by court order at the request of the pregnant parent and “a determination by a physician of the month during which the child was conceived,” which seems like one more way to keep track of what a woman does with her own body.
Senator Britt and the Republican Party are framing the MOMS Act as a bill that helps women, yet really, it puts them under surveillance and in danger.
It overlays personhood onto an entity that isn’t yet a person and denies the personhood of the pregnant parent.
Amr Taha / Unsplash
Senator Britt is positioned within the Republican Party as being pro-family, pro-parent, and pro-child.
The MOMS Act is being framed as though it helps moms. What the bill is subtly saying is significant to women’s general autonomy and the pro-choice movement, pushing the idea that life begins at conception.
Asking non-gestational parents to pay child support during pregnancy takes us one step closer to a world in which pregnancy is criminalized, and women are denied the essential human right to make decisions about our bodies and our lives.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.