MOMS Act Mandates Pre-Birth Child Support and Creates Resource Hub, Excludes Abortion Providers from All Funding

The More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed Act, or the MOMS Act, is a sweeping piece of legislation that tackles maternal health support, resource distribution, and child support enforcement. At its core, the bill aims to centralize resources for pregnant women and new mothers while dramatically changing who is eligible for federal funding and support.

The New Federal Resource Hub: Pregnancy.gov

Title I directs the creation of a new federal website, Pregnancy.gov, within one year of enactment. Think of it as a national directory where you can plug in your ZIP code and find resources like housing assistance, mental health services, and adoption agencies within a specific radius (from 1 to 100 miles). This could be a huge win for someone who just moved or lives in a resource desert, making it easier to find local help. The bill authorizes funding for this through 2030.

But here’s the crucial fine print in Section 101: The Secretary of HHS must create rules to vet resources, and absolutely no resource from a “prohibited entity” can be listed or receive related state grants. A “prohibited entity” is defined as any organization that performs, encourages, refers for, or counsels in favor of abortions, or financially supports groups that do. If your local community health center offers comprehensive reproductive care, including abortion counseling alongside prenatal care, the bill prohibits it from being listed on the federal site. This means the resource map, while geographically useful, will be heavily curated and non-comprehensive regarding reproductive health options.

Grant Money with Strings Attached

Title II sets up two new grant programs. The first, under Section 201, is the “Positive Alternatives for Women” grant program, which supports organizations helping women carry pregnancies to term. These grantees must offer referrals for essential services like medical care, housing, and job assistance, and they cannot charge women for services funded by the grant. The major restriction here mirrors Title I: any organization that is in any way involved in abortion services or referrals is strictly ineligible for this funding. The funds also cannot be used to pay for health insurance that covers abortion services.

The second grant program (Section 202) focuses on improving access to prenatal and postnatal telehealth, specifically targeting rural, frontier, and medically underserved areas. This is a practical step toward closing the maternal health gap, allowing providers to buy equipment for at-home monitoring. For a woman in a remote county, this could mean better management of a high-risk pregnancy without a two-hour drive to the nearest clinic. However, this grant program also carries the same exclusion: organizations involved with abortion services are banned from receiving these funds, regardless of the quality of their prenatal and telehealth services.

Child Support Starts Before Birth

Title III, Section 301, introduces a significant change to child support enforcement. States that receive federal child support funding must update their plans to establish and enforce child support obligations on the biological father for the benefit of an unborn child—if the mother requests it. This means child support payments could start counting from the month of conception, based on a doctor’s confirmation. If paternity is established later, payments can be collected retroactively.

For a pregnant woman struggling to cover prenatal care costs or basic needs, this provision could provide critical financial relief months before the baby is born. However, the state cannot pursue paternity or support enforcement without the mother's consent, and they cannot take any action that might harm the unborn child. This change won't kick in immediately; the amendments take effect two years after the Act is signed into law. This section also ensures that states can’t use pilot programs to waive this new requirement, cementing pre-birth child support as a mandatory feature of state programs.

State Reporting and Financial Risk

Another subtle but important shift is in Section 102, which requires states to send an annual list of licensed, tax-exempt child placement agencies to the Secretary. This list will be compiled and posted on Pregnancy.gov. If a state fails to submit this list on time, it risks losing federal adoption and legal guardianship incentive payments. For states already stretched thin, this new reporting requirement carries a real financial penalty if they miss the January 1st deadline, linking administrative compliance directly to crucial federal funding for adoption services.