Discussion of the “Save MO Babies Act”
A recent proposed bill in Missouri has generated scary headlines, including “Missouri proposes registry for pregnant mothers” from The Hill, and “Missouri Republican proposes ‘e-Harmony for babies’ database to track pregnant women ‘at risk’ of seeking abortion” by The Independent.
The bill in question is HB 807, or the “Save MO Babies Act,” proposed by Rep. Phil Amato and written by Gerard Harms, an adoption attorney. Their stated purpose for the bill is “coordinating and applying for services for expecting mothers who wish to place their baby for adoption and placing such babies for adoption with fit and proper adoptive parents.” A few witnesses submitted written testimony in favor of the bill during a public hearing on February 18, including one who stated
I am a birth mother who fought hard to uncover resources for me and my baby. This bill is long overdue and much needed for women like me who wanted the best resource for the child in our womb. I received only abortion clinic locations and appointment times from my local health agency and planned parenthood facility. I had to dig and find a doctor and an attorney and resources.
While the supporters of this bill may have noble intentions of helping women who wish to place their children for adoption, the bill as written does not make clear how these women would be identified. The legislation calls for the state to “maintain a central registry of each expectant mother who is at risk for seeking an abortion of her unborn child and make the same available to a prospective adoptive parent who has completed screenings.”
Both Republican and Democratic members of the House Children and Families Committee pressed the author and bill’s sponsor on how the state would identify these women, and on their concerns for the women’s privacy. The bill’s author said he intended the registry to be voluntary and had a revised draft that would change the language to “maintain a central registry of expectant mothers who have voluntarily decided to place their unborn babies for adoption.”
Explicitly making the registry voluntary for expectant mothers is important, but there are also other concerns with the bill. The proposed legislation calls for the state to “maintain mechanisms as are necessary to facilitate the introduction and mutual agreements of an expectant mother at risk for seeking an abortion of her unborn child and a fit and proper prospective adoptive parent.” There are no mentions in the bill of providing services or options to the expectant mother that would enable her to keep and raise her baby herself, and in the worst light, the “mechanisms” in the bill as written could be interpreted as pressuring women to give their babies up to better “fit and proper” parents.
When women are unable to access abortion, the Turnaway Study found that those who placed for adoption were more likely to still say they wished they aborted, and women who chose to parent almost universally said they were glad they didn’t abort, and the vast majority bonded normally to their babies. If the goal of this bill is to reduce the number of abortions and “Save MO Babies,” empowering women to choose to carry and raise their babies themselves should be a primary focus of the conversation.
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