The MOMS Act would amend the Public Health Service Act to create pregnancy.gov, a centralized online directory of resources for pregnant and postpartum women and families with young children, including a ZIP-code based resource finder. It would also establish a grant program for states to aggregate and display relevant resources, with criteria to exclude prohibited entities and to promote multilingual access and privacy protections.
In addition, the bill authorizes at-home prenatal and postnatal telehealth equipment grants to expand access in rural and medically underserved areas. Finally, Title III extends child-support enforcement to unborn children, potentially starting obligations from conception if requested, with safeguards for consent and privacy.
Together, these provisions aim to streamline access to supportive services, reduce geographic and informational barriers, and align financial obligations with the needs of pregnant women and their children. The bill signals a strong federal role in coordinating resources while restricting funding to abortion-related activities, and it creates new policy levers around unborn-child support that would reverberate through courts, families, and health systems.
At a Glance
What It Does
It requires a public pregnancy.gov website that aggregates resources for pregnant and postpartum individuals, with ZIP-code–driven search, multilingual access, and a consent-based outreach mechanism. It also authorizes state grants to build or harmonize such resource systems and prohibits listing resources from prohibited entities.
Who It Affects
Directly affects pregnant and postpartum women, families, state health agencies, pregnancy centers, and private adoption organizations; broadens visibility of resources for rural, frontier, and medically underserved populations.
Why It Matters
Centralizes and standardizes access to critical services, reducing fragmentation and helping professionals connect clients with appropriate support quickly; it also creates a national list of licensed child-placement agencies and expands prenatal telehealth options, while introducing new unborn-child support mechanisms.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill adds Title XXXIV to the Public Health Service Act to create a federal online directory called pregnancy.gov. This site will host a clearinghouse of resources for pregnant and postpartum women and families with young children, allow users to generate tailored resource lists based on ZIP code, and direct users to resources that are available online or within specified travel distances.
It also requires the site to support multiple languages and to implement a consent-based outreach system so the Department of Health and Human Services can follow up with users about additional resources. States are invited to participate by providing recommendations for listed resources and are given grants to build or support state resource systems that meet specified criteria, including the exclusion of prohibited entities (such as abortion providers).
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill creates pregnancy.gov to serve as a centralized, multilingual resource directory for pregnant and postpartum individuals.
States can obtain grants to build or connect their own resource systems that feed into pregnancy.gov, using criteria that exclude prohibited entities.
Resources promoted on pregnancy.gov cannot come from prohibited entities and cannot abuse grant funds.
The bill expands prenatal and postnatal care access through telehealth equipment grants aimed at rural and underserved areas.
It extends unborn-child support enforcement, potentially starting at conception if requested, with safeguards and a two-year rollout for implementation.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Establishment of pregnancy.gov and resource directory
This section adds the framework for a new national directory within the Public Health Service Act. It requires the Secretary to publish a public website, pregnancy.gov, within a year of enactment. The site must function as a clearinghouse for resources for pregnant and postpartum women and women parenting young children, offer a ZIP-code–based resource finder and distance-based filtering, and include a consent-based outreach mechanism to connect users with additional resources. The intent is to reduce information gaps and streamline referrals across public and private providers.
National list of licensed child placement agencies
This provision adds a requirement to the Social Security Act to maintain a national list of licensed child placement agencies based on state-submitted lists. The Secretary must aggregate and publish these lists on pregnancy.gov and report annually to Congress on any agencies not on the list and any disciplinary actions. The mechanism aims to improve oversight and transparency in child placement services linked to pregnancy outcomes.
List of funding opportunities for pregnancy centers
This section directs the Secretary to add to pregnancy.gov a publicly available list of federal funding opportunities for nonprofit and health care entities that provide pregnancy-support services. The intent is to expand access to funding for organizations offering relevant resources, ensuring they meet program requirements and align with the broader resource directory’s goals.
Positive alternatives for women (grants for information and services)
This section authorizes grants to eligible nonprofit entities to provide information on, referrals to, and direct services for pregnant and postpartum women. Eligible entities must be nonprofit, not charge for services, and maintain privacy protections equivalent to HIPAA standards. They must avoid entities that perform or promote abortion, and they must adopt privacy policies to protect client information. Covered services include medical care, nutrition, housing, education and employment assistance, childcare, parenting education, and counseling.
Improving prenatal and postnatal telehealth care
This section authorizes grants or cooperative agreements to purchase equipment for at-home telehealth visits to improve prenatal and postnatal care, particularly in rural, frontier, medically underserved, and tribal communities. Eligible recipients must avoid abortion-related activities, and funds may be used to acquire devices and related services for remote monitoring. A Congress-mandated report due in 2029 analyzes the program’s impact on care access and outcomes.
Unborn child support enforcement
This provision amends the Social Security Act to require states to establish and enforce child support obligations for the biological father of an unborn child, subject to certain conditions. The start date may begin with conception if requested by the mother, and payments can be retroactive. The calculation and enforcement must consider the best interests of the mother and child, and measures to establish paternity require consent and must not pose risk to the unborn child. The term ‘unborn child’ is defined broadly to include a fetus at any developmental stage.
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Who Benefits
- Pregnant and postpartum women who will gain easier access to targeted resources via pregnancy.gov and the connected telehealth enhancements.
- Families and caregivers seeking integrated support services (medical, nutritional, housing, childcare, education) coordinated through grantee programs.
- State health departments and agencies that administer grant programs and maintain local resource directories, improving service delivery coordination.
- Pregnancy support centers and compliant nonprofit providers that can access new funding opportunities to expand services.
- Licensed private child placement agencies and adoption providers that will be listed in a national directory, increasing transparency and potential referrals.
Who Bears the Cost
- Federal government bears the cost of establishing and maintaining pregnancy.gov and funding telehealth devices and grant programs (2025–2030).
- State governments bear administrative costs to apply for, manage, and report on grants and to operate state resource aggregation systems.
- Health care providers and grantees must invest in privacy protections and program compliance to meet grant requirements.
- Pregnancy centers and other eligible entities incur compliance costs and monitoring requirements to remain eligible for funding.
- Prohibited entities lose access to grant funding and related promotional resources, shifting funding toward compliant organizations.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is balancing expanded, centralized resources and early financial support for unborn children with statutory limits on abortion-related activities and the administrative burdens of implementing a broad, federally driven directory and child-support framework.
The bill’s design creates a centralized information infrastructure and a suite of grants intended to streamline access to services for pregnant women and families, while simultaneously restricting funds from flowing to abortion-related providers. This dual approach raises practical questions about the scope of “resources” and how strictly the “prohibited entity” bar will be interpreted in state programs and grant reviews.
The reliance on state submissions for the national list of child placement agencies could also produce gaps if states fail to report timely or comprehensively, potentially undermining the directory’s completeness. The unborn-child provisions introduce a policy with far-reaching implications for family law and paternity determinations, including potential retroactive support, which could intersect with privacy, enforcement, and due process concerns in courts and among families.
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