The Republican-controlled Kentucky Senate overwhelmingly voted Tuesday to give parents the right to collect child support for their unborn children.
Senate Bill 110, passed by a bipartisan vote of 36-2, would allow mothers to claim child support within a year of giving birth to retroactively cover pregnancy costs. The bill now heads to the House, where Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Whitney Westerfield, said after the vote that overwhelming support for the bill meant that lawmakers needed the other parent to get pregnant for nine months before the baby’s birth. This indicates that the company understands that it is obligated to cover the costs incurred. .
“I believe that life begins at conception,” Westerfield said when presenting the proposal to colleagues. “But even if you don’t, there’s no question that there are obligations and costs to having a child before the child is born.”
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Kentucky Republican Sen. Whitney Westerfield testifies during a meeting of the State Local Government Commission at the State Capitol on Wednesday, February 19, 2020 in Frankfort, Kentucky. (AP)
The measure sets a strict end date, meaning parents must claim child support for pregnancy expenses retroactively within one year after giving birth, and cannot claim after that.
“So unless a child support order is issued until the child is 8 years old, this doesn’t apply,” Westerfield said recently when the bill was considered in a Senate committee. “This does not apply to 1 year and 1 day. It is limited to orders placed within 1 year of birth.”
Kentucky is one of at least six states where lawmakers have proposed measures similar to Georgia’s law that would allow child support claims for child support incurred since pregnancy. Georgia also allows prospective parents to claim prenatal earned income tax credits for dependent children, Utah implemented pregnancy tax credits last year, and several other states have introduced these credits. Variations of measures have been proposed.
Kentucky’s bill underwent significant changes before being passed by the Senate. The original version allowed parents to seek child support any time after the pregnancy, but it has been amended to include a deadline by which parents can claim child support retroactively.
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Senate Bill 110 would allow mothers to claim child support within a year of giving birth to retroactively cover pregnancy costs. (Getty Images)
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Abortion access advocates will closely monitor attempts by pro-life lawmakers to reshape the bill in a way that “sets the stage for character development” in the unborn child, said Tamara Wieder, advocacy director of the Kentucky Planned Parenthood Alliance. he said.
Veeder’s concerns come after the Alabama Supreme Court recently ruled that frozen embryos are legally protected children. The pro-life movement has sought to give fetuses and unborn children the same legal and constitutional protections as the mothers who carry them.
Kentucky’s bill must be approved by a House committee and the full House, and any changes in the House would send it back to the Senate.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
