The GOP-led Kentucky Senate overwhelmingly voted on Tuesday, March 5, 2024, to grant a parent the right to collect child support for unborn children. As a result, the Senate advanced a bill that garnered bipartisan support. Senate Bill 110 passed by a bipartisan 36-2 vote.
According to reports, the bill would allow a mother to request child support for up to a year after giving birth to cover pregnancy expenses retroactively. The legislation advances to the House, and Republicans have supermajorities in both chambers.
Republican state Sen. Whitney Westerfield, the bill’s sponsor, spoke about the overwhelming support for the bill. He said the vote shows that lawmakers understand that pregnancy includes an obligation. He stated that the other parent must cover expenses incurred nine months before the baby’s birth.
Westerfield is a staunch abortion opponent, and it’s no surprise he’s sponsoring this bill. “I believe that life begins at conception,” Westerfield said while presenting the measure to his colleagues. “But even if you don’t, there’s no question that there are obligations and costs involved with having a child before that child is born.”
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However, the measure sets a strict time limit. It allows a parent to retroactively seek child support for pregnancy expenses up to a year after giving birth. “So if there’s not a child support order until the child’s 8, this isn’t going to apply,” Westerfield said. “Even at a year and a day, this doesn’t apply,” he added during a committee review of the bill.
“It’s only for orders that are in place within a year of the child’s birth.” Kentucky is among at least six states where lawmakers have proposed measures similar to a Georgia law. Like SB110, the Georgia bill allows mothers to seek child support back to conception.
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Furthermore, Georgia allows prospective parents to claim its income tax deduction for dependent children before birth. Utah enacted a pregnancy tax break last year, which has spread to several other states. Hence, variations of those measures are before lawmakers in at least a handful of other states.
Although the Kentucky bill underwent a major revision, it later won Senate passage. Before the bill reform, the original version would have allowed a child support action at any time following conception. However, the Senate amended the measure to have the action apply only retroactively after the birth within the time limit.
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Despite the change, abortion-rights supporters aren’t entirely in support of the bill. They will watch the bill passing closely for any attempt by anti-abortion lawmakers to attack reproductive rights. Tamarra Wieder, the Kentucky State Director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, spoke on the bill.
Wieder said they will watch closely in case the lawmakers try to reshape the bill in a way that “sets the stage for personhood” for a fetus. However, despite the support of Kentucky lawmakers, the measure still needs to be cleared by a House committee and the full House.
According to reports, any House change would send the bill back to the Senate for reforms.
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