“A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to provide more opportunities for mothers to succeed, and for other purposes.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section designates the Act as the “More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed Act” or the “MOMS Act” and sets forth its table of contents.
This section establishes a public website, pregnancy.gov, to be published by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) not later than one year after enactment, with implementation not delegable below the Office of the Secretary. The website serves as a clearinghouse of federal, state, local, and private resources (i.e., relevant resources) for pregnant and postpartum women and women parenting young children—including mentorship, health services (e.g., abortion pill reversal, breastfeeding, primary care), financial and work assistance, material support (e.g., housing, baby supplies), and mental health services—tailored via user ZIP code, distance preferences (online or within 1, 5, 10, 50, or 100 miles), and optional assessments enabling HHS follow-up outreach with consent. It further (1) invites states to recommend resources per HHS criteria excluding prohibited entities (i.e., those that perform, induce, refer for, counsel in favor of, or financially support abortions); (2) provides grants to states to aggregate qualifying resources, coordinated by public or private entities; (3) prohibits listing or promoting prohibited-entity resources or awarding them grants; and (4) ensures multilingual access. Not later than 180 days after launch, the Secretary must report to Congress on website traffic, user feedback, resource gaps, improvements, and certification of prohibited-entity exclusions (without personal data). The section authorizes appropriations for FY2025 through FY2030.
This section amends the Social Security Act (1) to require states, by January 1 of each fiscal year, to submit to the Secretary a list of private child placement agencies (i.e., agencies that place children in prospective adoptive homes) that were licensed or accredited by, and in good standing with, the state as of the end of the preceding fiscal year and exempt from federal income tax under IRC §501(c)(3); (2) to direct the Secretary, through the Children's Bureau, to compile and maintain a publicly available national list of such agencies on pregnancy.gov using states' most recent submissions; and (3) to require the Secretary to submit annual reports to Congress beginning on the second December 31 after enactment, including the national list, identification of any state-licensed child placement agencies not on the list, and specifications of disciplinary actions taken by states against such agencies. The section further conditions a state's eligibility for adoption and legal guardianship incentive payments—grants rewarding states for increasing adoptions and legal guardianships of foster children, particularly older children and those with special needs—on compliance with the new reporting requirement (adding new subsection (b)(5) to section 473A). (Thus, noncompliant states forgo such grants in the succeeding fiscal year.)
This section requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to compile and maintain on the pregnancy.gov website a publicly available list of federal funding opportunities available to nonprofit and health care entities for pregnancy support services that offer or provide relevant resources, as defined in section 3401(g).
This section establishes a grant program administered by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to support, encourage, and assist women in carrying pregnancies to term and caring for themselves and their babies after birth. Grants are awarded to eligible nonprofit entities—which must provide counseling on fetal development, adhere to HIPAA-comparable privacy protections for client information (as defined in 42 U.S.C. 1320d–9(b)(3)), not charge for services, and maintain financial records demonstrating ineligibility for entities that perform, induce, refer for, counsel in favor of, or financially support abortion—for required information and referral services, and permissible direct provision of services including medical care, nutritional services, housing assistance, adoption services (from licensed providers), education and employment assistance, child care, parenting education, and voluntary substance abuse counseling. HHS must monitor grantee compliance with program purposes and requirements, cease funding for noncompliance, and prioritize applicants with demonstrated capacity in such services; funds may not cover abortion-inclusive health benefits or prohibited abortion-related activities and are drawn from unobligated amounts in the HHS Nonrecurring Expenses Fund.
This section directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to award grants or enter into cooperative agreements to eligible entities for purchasing equipment to enable at-home telehealth visits screening, monitoring, and managing prenatal and postnatal care, to improve maternal and infant health outcomes and reduce maternal mortality in rural areas, frontier counties, medically underserved areas, or jurisdictions of Indian tribes and tribal organizations (as defined in 25 U.S.C. 5304). Eligible entities provide prenatal, labor, birthing, or postpartum care services in those areas but are ineligible if they or affiliates perform, induce, refer for, counsel in favor of, or financially support abortions; funds may purchase remote physiologic devices and related services (e.g., pulse oximeters, blood pressure cuffs, scales, blood glucose monitors). The Secretary must report to Congress by September 30, 2028, on grant activities and effects, with authorization of such sums as necessary for FY2025 through FY2030.
This section amends state plan requirements under the child support enforcement program (Title IV-D of the Social Security Act) to require states to establish and enforce child support obligations of a biological father for an unborn child—defined as a member of the species homo sapiens at any stage of development in the womb—to the mother upon her request, with obligations potentially starting from the month of conception (as determined by a physician), allowing retroactive collection (including post-birth), determined by a court in consultation with the mother considering the best interests of the mother and child, without requiring the mother's consent for paternity establishment or measures posing risk of harm to an unborn child. It further amends the Secretary's waiver authority under Section 1115 to prohibit any experimental, pilot, or demonstration project for Title IV-D from modifying these new requirements on unborn child support. The amendments take effect 2 years after enactment and apply to calendar quarter payments under Title IV-D beginning on or after that date.