Measure allows parent to seek child support up to a year after giving birth to retroactively cover pregnancy expenses

Measure allows parent to seek child support up to a year after giving birth to retroactively cover pregnancy expenses

The Republican-led Kentucky senate voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to grant the right to collect child support for fetuses, advancing a bill that garnered bipartisan support despite nationwide fallout from a controversial Alabama decision also advancing “fetal personhood”.

The measure would allow a parent to seek child support up to a year after giving birth to retroactively cover pregnancy expenses. The legislation – Senate Bill 110 – won senate passage on a 36-2 vote with little discussion to advance to the House. Republicans have supermajorities in both chambers.

  • Neato@ttrpg.networkEnglish
    0·
    9 months ago

    So this doesn’t seem quite so extreme. It allows child support retroactively for the pregnancy period. Being pregnant can be quite expensive, especially without insurance. So having parents share the cost makes sense. We’ll have to see how it pans out. Note it only can be utilized if child support is ordered within the first year after birth.

    “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.”

    While I disagree with the premise, it’s a fairly mild take and I agree with the latter.

    Kentucky is among at least six states where lawmakers have proposed measures similar to a Georgia law that allows child support to be sought back to conception. Georgia also allows prospective parents to claim an income tax deduction for dependent children before birth.

    Well at least Georgia is being somewhat consistent. But if these people truly believe in conception being the start of personhood, miscarriages should also convey personhood and tax breaks.

    Edit: Yep, this does push towards fetal personhood, which is quite bad. Overall this is a bad law due to that trend by shithole states. But (depending on the language) this may be benign enough to withstand a federal law to protect abortion.

    • RampageDon@lemmy.world
      0·
      9 months ago

      Just to be devils advocate, while a law like this doesn’t seem bad, yay social programs, doesn’t it sort of set up more precedent that a child is a child at conception? In turn making it harder to argue for abortion rights based on other existing laws like this one.

    • Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world
      0·
      9 months ago

      I’d actually agree if our family court system wasn’t so broken and sexist. But I’m also apart of the unpopular minority that believes that if women can opt out of having kids by having an abortion men should be able to opt out of paying child support.

      Honestly none of this would really be an issue if healthcare was universal like it should be. It’s essentially treating a knife wound with a band-aid

        • Zoot@reddthat.com
          0·
          9 months ago

          If you are a man, and don’t want to have a pregnancy, there is no way to “opt out”. Now I agree with you entirely, however I understand where he is coming from as well. As far as I know, the father does not have a say in whether or not a child is born, however you can easily argue that you probably shouldn’t put yourself in that situation if its such a worry.