Alabama House Judiciary Committee rejects bill requiring in utero child support

Sen. Merika Coleman, D-Pleasant Grove, looks at the Alabama Senate gallery on April 23, 2024 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)

The House Judiciary Committee Wednesday rejected legislation that would have a parent of a child to pay child support for an unborn child.

SB 237, sponsored by Sen. Merika Coleman, D-Pleasant Grove, would require child support orders made within the first year after a child is born to be retroactive nine months before the child is born.

“In a body where we have already determined, we have legislation that has been passed, we have personhood legislation that life begins at conception,” Coleman said. “If indeed that is the case, so does support begin in utero.”

The legislation comes about two months after the Alabama Supreme Court declared that frozen embryos were “children,” a decision that brought a halt to many in vitro fertilization programs and required the state to intervene.

Coleman is a supporter of abortion rights. As a member of the Alabama House of Representatives in 2017, she voted against what became Alabama’s Sanctity of Life Amendment, which the Supreme Court cited in its IVF decision. Two years later, she joined House Democrats in a walkout in protest of the bill that would eventually lead to an effective ban on all abortions in the state.

The bill passed the Senate Children and Youth Health Committee and the Senate floor unanimously but could not get enough support from members of the House Judiciary Committee.

Most lawmakers on the committee were willing to agree with making a parent, particularly a father, pay child support retroactively, but only to when the child is born. Some on the committee wondered why the payments had to date back to when the child is in utero.

“Prior to the child being born, Pampers are bought prior to, formula is purchased, swing sets, all kinds of things, the baby carrier, the crib, all of those things are purchased in utero, and that is why we think that it is fair and just that child support go all the way back to the nine months in utero,” Coleman said.

Rep. Bryan Brinyark, R-Windham Springs, had concerns about the magnitude of the financial obligation that could be imposed on the father of the child.

“What you are doing to these men, probably in a lot of instances, did not even know, they are hit with, not only however many months it has been the child has been born as retroactive child support, now you are lumping another nine months on there.”

Coleman added parents, especially fathers, need to support their children.

“I hate to be this way on live streaming, on television, or whatever, but if you did the deed, and you played the game and you did not protect yourself, and you are a possible father, you should prepare yourself,” Coleman said during the committee meeting.

Others on the committee were not convinced however and voted against the measure.

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