Child support before birth? Mississippi senator proposes it while local lawyer has doubts

A bill to allow mothers to seek child-support payments while they are still pregnant has been proposed by a group of U.S. senators that includes Mississippi's Cindy Hyde-Smith.

The legislation comes as many conservatives, including Hyde-Smith, have called for more help for mothers and children following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn nationwide access to abortion.

The proposal would amend the federal Social Security Act to add unborn children to the list of those eligible for child support. In the bill, an unborn child is defined as "a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."

The bill is primarily sponsored by Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and six other Republican senators join Hyde-Smith as cosponsors. In the House, Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., sponsored identical legislation.

"I hope good legislation, like the Unborn Child Support Act, gets more support now that the Dobbs decision encourages us to look more seriously at supporting mothers and their unborn children,” Hyde-Smith said. “This legislation would help ensure women have opportunities to receive child-support payments from the earlier days of their pregnancy.”

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Longtime Hattiesburg family law attorney S. Christopher Farris also said he saw a link between the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization and the group of Republicans choosing to sponsor this legislation. He called the proposal "politics."

"I think it's a response to Roe v. Wade, as a way to provide support to these mothers, to encourage them to go the adoption route, versus what used to be the abortion route, because what you're fixing to have is just all these pregnant women who can't afford to have a child, who can't afford the health care," Farris said.

Farris said he supports the spirit of the legislation. He said his practice sees "just as many paternity cases as divorce cases," which did not used to be the case. That said, he doubts it will become law.

"Anything that requires a father of a child to step up to the plate and support the mother of his child and that child is a good thing. And the intent is good," Farris said. "The problem is not everything that sounds like a good idea can be put into play."

For one, it is impossible to prove paternity through a DNA test while a fetus is still in the womb, Farris said.

"It's gonna be impossible to reach that standard," Farris said. "You're going to have to establish who the responsible party is. Now, if I get somebody who comes in and says, 'Yeah, it's my child.' Yeah, that'll work. But if there's a conflict — I mean, I have cases now where people raise kids for five, six years, go through a divorce and found out the kid isn't theirs."

Additionally, laws already exist in many states, including Mississippi, that allow a judge to retroactively award child support to a mother.

"We already have in play the right of a mother to file a paternity action, to establish the father, his child-support obligation, his health-insurance obligation," Farris said. "And it gives the chancery judge the discretion to award up to 12 months of back support."

With only Republican support so far, and a Democrat-controlled Congress and White House, the path forward for Hyde-Smith's Unborn Child Support Act remains unclear. If the bill were to pass, Farris predicts the lack of ability to identify the father would mean things wouldn't play out much differently than they already do, with judges having to award back support after the child is born.

"Every time I hear somebody say, 'We need to pass this law,' I say, 'Guess what? We've already got three,' " Farris said. "Why don't we go read the ones we've got instead of passing new ones every year?"

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Hattiesburg lawyer doubtful of Cindy Hyde-Smith's child support proposal