Sponsors (29)
Official title: Amend the Public Health Service Act to provide more opportunities for mothers to succeed, and for other purposes.
Introduced May 6, 2025 by Katie Boyd Britt · Last progress May 6, 2025
The bill expands federal support, information, and enforcement to increase prenatal/postpartum services and prenatal child‑support recovery, but does so while excluding abortion‑affiliated providers, creating new administrative burdens for governments and nonprofits, and raising legal and rights-related risks around definitions of the unborn.
Pregnant and postpartum women — including those in rural and tribal areas — gain access to free information, referrals, and direct services (prenatal/postnatal care, housing, nutrition, education, childcare), improving maternal and infant health supports.
Pregnant and postpartum people, especially in remote areas, can receive at‑home telehealth equipment (blood pressure cuffs, scales, pulse oximeters) to improve monitoring and care continuity.
Parents (particularly mothers) can seek financial support from biological fathers as early as conception, with potential retroactive child‑support awards to cover prenatal and early childhood costs, increasing short‑term household income for many families.
Organizations that provide, refer for, or support abortion (or health coverage including abortion) are barred from grants and grant funds may not be used for abortion coverage, shrinking the pool of eligible providers and potentially limiting comprehensive reproductive care—especially in rural and underserved communities.
The bill imposes substantial administrative, compliance, and fiscal burdens on HHS, states, and nonprofit grantees (clearinghouse maintenance, monitoring/recordkeeping, changing state plans, processing retroactive claims), which could divert resources from direct services and disadvantage small grassroots providers.
Defining 'child' or 'unborn child' as a human at any stage in the womb may restrict reproductive-health policy, create legal conflicts, and have chilling effects on related services and rights.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Creates pregnancy.gov and a nonprofit-only pregnancy/postpartum grant program (excluding abortion providers), requires State reporting of licensed child-placement agencies tied to incentive payments, and allows child-support orders for unborn children.
Establishes a federal pregnancy resource clearinghouse (pregnancy.gov), requires States to annually report licensed private child‑placement agencies to maintain eligibility for certain adoption and guardianship incentive payments, and creates a federal grant program funding nonprofit pregnancy and postpartum support services that exclude abortion provision or referrals. It also amends child‑support rules to allow States to seek child‑support obligations from biological fathers for an unborn child (as early as the month of conception with physician determination), with new limits on waivers for those provisions.