Kentucky Senate passes bill to grant the right to collect child support for unborn children

The Republican-controlled Kentucky Senate voted Tuesday to grant the right to seek and claim child support for unborn children.

The bill would allow a parent to seek retroactive child support to cover the cost of pregnancy until one year after the child is born.

Senate Bill 110 won bipartisan support in the chamber and, with very little discussion, advanced out of the Senate to the House by a vote of 36-2. Both 'No' votes were from Republican lawmakers.

Both Kentucky chambers are controlled by Republican supermajorities.

Whitney Westerfield, a Republican Senator who sponsored the bill, said that the wide support within the chamber for it reflects a near-universal recognition that carrying a child comes with an obligation for the other parent to help cover pregnancy expenses.

Whitney Westerfield (pictured), a Republican Senator who sponsored the bill, said that the wide support within the chamber for it reflects a near-universal recognition that carrying a child comes with an obligation for the other parent to help cover pregnancy expenses

A bill that passed the Kentucky Senate would allow a parent to seek retroactive child support to cover the cost of pregnancy until one year after the child is born

Westerfield is a pro-life politician, who told his colleagues he believes 'that life begins at conception.

'But even if you don't (believe the same), there's no question that there are obligations and costs involved with having a child before that child is born.'

To reinforce his point, the senator listed some of the expenses his family dealt with during his wife's pregnancy.

'We've got health insurance and I've got a stack of bills with co-pays and premiums and so forth on my desk right now that I'll be paying tonight electronically. So, I know that there are costs involved, and that's before we even get to buying three car seats and three of everything else between now and when these babies show up,' he said.

Westerfield and his wife are currently expecting triplets, in addition to their two other children. 

Westerfield explained that the one-year time limit is serous and the order will not apply in cases that are filed even 'a year and a day' after the birth of the child. This was not the case in the original version of the bill, which would have allowed petitioners to seek support at any time following a child's birth.

State Senator David Yates, a Louisville Democrat, said he concurred with Westerfield's position.

'Any of us with children know that it isn't cheap. And one thing that I've learned is that, and my colleague has said many times before us, that the other parent should be paying that support. They should be helping out,' he said. 

Kentucky is one of half-a-dozen states where legislators have proposed measures similar to an already-existing Georgia law that allow petitioners to seek child support dating back to the time of conception.

The bill will now go before the State House. In content, the measure is similar to half-a-dozen pending in state legislatures across the country and one law i Georgia that has already taken effect

Georgia also allows parents-to-be to claim an income tax deduction for dependent children before the time of their births.

Utah implemented a pregnancy tax break last year, and similar legislation is pending before lawmakers in a handful of other states.

The bill's passage comes amid an ongoing controversy in Alabama, where the state Supreme Court recently ruled that frozen embryos are legally protected children.

In Kentucky, pro-abortion supporters and organizations are keeping a watchful eye on the bill for fear that it will 'set the stage for personhood' for a fetus, a designation that the pro-choice movement strongly opposes, according to Tamarra Wieder, the Kentucky State director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates. 

'All you have to do is look at Alabama. We have been warning people since Dobbs decision, and even before Dobbs fell, that it's not just abortion access that's at risk, it's IVF, it's birth control. Personhood bills directly put that at risk,' she said.