1y ago

Kentucky senate passes bill granting right to collect child support for fetuses

www.theguardian.com

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.

91 comments

One more gentle nudge towards only stupid people reproducing.
But that’s probably the conservative goal. Playing the long game, expanding their base.
- Yup. That's why they ban books and cut funding for public education. They want uneducated people to keep voting for Republican candidates who put their own kids into private schools, and the cycle continues.
  
  Neofeudalism, having fun yet?
- Jokes on her: I know Smoothie when I see 'm
- My dude, they are forty years into the long-term plan. It’s going really well
- Definitely that, but it's a two birds thing. Their base is horribly ignorant, but they are not. They are 100% malicious. Not only do they get to control the rights of people they've never empathized with, they get to do exactly what you said over time.
- Exactly. The goal in red states is to cultivate a large population of angry and unintelligent people by essentially forcing the impoverished to have kids and sending them through dismantled education systems. They are creating a feeder system for the military and for Republican votes. That's just my conspiracy theory.
- 'Only stupid people reproducing' rhetoric unfortunately is veeeery close to eugenics talking points
  
  Not at all. Everyone should be entitled to a safe, healthy life no matter their traits or attributes. Restricting people's reproductive choices is insidious and people can't be trusted to do it properly, even if there was a 'fair' way to do it. It doesn't stop conservatives from constantly doing just that, though.
  What I am getting at is, the more stupid laws that get passed to 'punish' people for having sex, the more people on the end of the spectrum that have good critical thinking skills will choose to delay or avoid having kids in that place that's making the stupid laws. It's strictly about incentivizing behavior through policy.
  
  I don't think there are many people here who think the solution is for stupid people to stop reproducing, rather that our education system stop producing so many stupid people.
- I think this is the wrong way to frame it. Really, it will come down to people with a strong enough upbringing to understand their choices. A lot of people have children because they didn’t have good guidance from adult figures in their lives, it’s not because they’re stupid. A lot of those folks are just poor.
The original version would have allowed a child support action at any time following conception, but the measure was amended to have such an action apply only retroactively after the birth within the time limit.
Weird, it's almost like there's a huge difference between a fertilized egg and a baby.
- It also dodges issues with abortion and child support.
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.
- 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.
  
  Abortion rights are based on the bodily autonomy of the woman, not the status of the fetus.
  Even a fully grown adult cannot use another person's body without consent.
  
  I'd say it sets a precedent that a child isn't a child until after birth. They don't want to pay the bill without proof of purchase. Fuck these vermin.
  
  It sounds like it doesn't take effect until the child is born, so I dont think it itself respects that precedent. But it's a red supermajority state so I'm sure they'll find a way to oppress women with this, even if I do fundamentally agree with the idea that an absent father be on the hook for pregnancy expenses.
  
  devil's* advocate
- Make no mistake, this may seem reasonable on the surface, but it's a Trojan horse that anti-choice extremists are hoping to leverage so they can get another case in front of our extremist supreme court to argue that fetuses should get full protection under the 14th amendment, resulting in a full nationwide abortion ban. NPR recently released an article about this: How states giving rights to fetuses could set up a national case on abortion
- This sure seems like a step towards a personhood bill. Which is exactly what Republicans want
- if these people truly believe in conception being the start of personhood, miscarriages should also convey personhood and tax breaks.
  They should get paid bereavement leave
  
  I don't know if you mean this ironically but parents of a miscarried fetus really should get bereavement leave. It's extremely traumatic and would take time to recover from.
- 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
  
  If you could opt out if child support no one would pay. That's a bad idea.
  
  Sex carries risk and if you willingly ejaculate into a woman then you willingly risk being a father. Use birth control and don't sleep with pro lifers. You can"t opt out after the fact because you're not the pregnant one, it's pretty simple and the men whining about would be better served by demanding better birth control for men than trying to punish women.
- It always comes down to the details….. yeah, it doesn’t seem like a bad thing to help with medical expenses, BUT ….
  Skipping a lot of reasons that should still be considered, but this is about money, specifically for healthcare. Healthcare is ridiculously expensive, but I have medical insurance to help cover it and that certainly made it easier to afford pregnancy costs.
  However, coming back for money after the fact is a horrible implementation
  where’s the support when you need it most, during pregnancy?
  how can this possibly be covered by insurance?
  Isn’t this approach worse for everyone?
Any young buck reading this: If you have insurance, they'll usually cover vascectomy with a minimal co-pay. Do it. Contact your doctor, your insurance company, figure it out and do it. Yeah, it's a little weird having someone shave your junk, and you're achy for a few days after, but think about it. A lifetime of less stress and more money. Just do it. You'll thank me in your dotage.
- I didn’t even have a co pay for mine.
  
  Same. The whole thing was covered by insurance.
- There are still people, that want to have kids at some point.
  
  Fortunately, most vasectomies are reversible.
  
  Imagine the gall to look around at this world and be so blinded by, I don't know, narcissism, self-centeredness, hubris and think,"Yeah, what we need here is another fucking human."
- Shave it yourself before the appt
  
  They still have to shave it again at the doctor. My mom said she wished people wouldn't pre-shave surgical sites (she's a nurse, not just a weirdo offering to shave people for fun).
  ETA: If your doctor tells you to shave before a procedure, do it. It's probably just a good bet in general to always follow whatever pre-op instructions you get from your specific provider because every doctor is different.
  
  Mine told me not to. Had a decent looking nurse take care of it beforehand. It was an odd, but not terrible experience.
- It's also not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Once I told the Dr to stop telling me what he was doing down there and talk about movies or some shit it was no big deal. Best investment I've ever made.
What about child tax credits for frozen embryos?
Ok here is an idea: get some sperm and with IVF get it fertilized. Now you have a frozen child. Since the age starts at birth as long as the child isn't implanted it will never hit 18. Meaning you can still collect child support until the IVF facility has an accident or the father dies. For bonus points you can implant two eggs which, according to what I just read, is about 40% of the dad's income up to 120k a year on average. For extra bonus points you can demand that the father puts you under a family insurance plan saving you about 8k a year on insurance.
If you pull this off right you can grab about 50k a year tax free.
Now all I need is some eggs and rich guy sperm, never have to work again. So ladies if you are angry about being reduced to less important than a cluster of cells you now know how you can exploit the situation. Just make sure you don't let him flush the condom after you find some rich guy at a bar.
- summary of the bill:
  child support may be retroactive to nine months prior to the date the child is born if the order is entered within the first year after the birth of the child.
  Even shitty lawmakers think of things like that.
Aaaaaaand in 3... 2... 1... abortion rights are about to become a bit more popular at the polls
- They always strum up abortion rights because they have nothing else to create discourse. Their whole strategy is not to cooperate to create arguments and get votes through hate. It helps no one. Especially the people.
Well. They are consistent at least.
Okay.. Having not actually read the bill in question and only having a cursory understanding of what specifically constitutes a fetus vs an embryo, unborn child (like actively going into labor), etc. this feels like an actually kind of okay thing?
I mean, obviously the removal of a woman's rights to control and administer their own bodies is fucking insane and those supporting it should be treated with nothing shy of the most abject contempt one could muster.. But the way this article is worded makes it sound like the bill will allow women to seek some form of monetary justice from an unwanted pregnancy? Which feels jarringly contrary to the motivations behind the policys that make this bill necessary?
Genuinely asking. Am I missing something? Lol
- What you're missing is that it's a step in the direction of establishing fetuses as being treated like humans for things like child support, tax benefits, HOV lane benefits, and so on, with the end goal being able to stand in front of our extremist supreme court and say "Gee, isn't it funny how we treat fetuses as humans for this, this, and this, but not as humans when it comes to the fourteenth amendment guaranteeing equal protection under the law? You agree? Great! Now that we've established that fetuses have rights under the fourteenth amendment, let's talk about all these pesky blue states that aren't banning abortion..."
- The correct way to get monetary justice from an unwanted pregnancy is to pay for medical bills, not claim the the clump of cells growing in the person is a child.
- Yeah I kind of read it the same way. What I got from the article is that a single mom could get child support while she's pregnant. Which seems reasonable to me.
- Agreed, although there are other costs associated with pregnancy than healthcare such as extra food and supplies.
Kentucky trying to bankrupt itself, about par for course with republicans. In a short lived Anarchy their biggest donors are the clear winners.

91 comments