Senate Democratic women push back against Katie Britt's 'MOMS Act'

[LetMyPeopleVote]

As Sen. Katie Britt champions the “More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed Act,” one specific provision is drawing sharp pushback from Senate Democrats.

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https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/senate-democratic-women-push-back-katie-britts-moms-act-rcna152144

As Mother’s Day approached, a group of Republican senators, led by Alabama’s Katie Britt, tried to rally some support for a new legislative proposal called the “More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed Act” (or “MOMS Act”). As Axios reported late last week, the bill seemed rather predictable.

The bill would require states to apply child support obligations during pregnancy and would launch a website — Pregnancy.gov— with resources related to pregnancy, including information about adoption agencies, but not abortion clinics. It would also provide grants to anti-abortion non-profits that assist women through their pregnancies and after birth.

This is, to be sure, standard GOP fare. Republican officials tend to be uncomfortable with the idea that the party’s sole focus in this area is imposing abortion restrictions, and the MOMS Act appears designed to package familiar GOP measures on the issue.......

The Democratic senators added, “Americans don’t want the government to track, intimidate, and coerce pregnant women into carrying their pregnancies to term no matter their circumstances. Yet, Senate Republicans want to mandate the creation of an online federal database where women will be encouraged to register their pregnancies with the government in order to push them toward anti-abortion propaganda and dangerous crisis pregnancy centers — this tells us exactly how Republicans will weaponize the whole of government to restrict a woman’s freedom to choose and force them to stay pregnant no matter what.”

All of this comes on the heels of Donald Trump’s interview with Time magazine, in which reporter Eric Cortellessa asked, “Do you think states should monitor women’s pregnancies so they can know if they’ve gotten an abortion after the ban?” The presumptive GOP nominee responded, “I think they might do that.”

Britt’s bill has 12 Republican co-sponsors. I don’t imagine we’ve heard the last of the debate over its provisions.