Rape and Child Support in three states where abortion is illegal.
The table above estimates the number of rape-related pregnancies in states in which abortion is illegal. I have been worrying about what happens next for these pregnancies, the babies, and their parent. In the journal paper for this table, the authors mention that even in states where the law allows abortions in cases of rape or incest, only ten or so abortions have taken place. So, presumably, many of these pregnancies will lead to live births and babies needing care.
Each state in our country has its own rules about child support payments, access for support to parents struggling to raise a child and keep a job, and other issues around raising a child. Given that nine states do not allow a pregnant person to get an abortion even if the pregnancy is the result of rape, I was curious how they handle the child support situation in the case of rape.
Today, I looked at the child support web pages for three states in which abortion is illegal after rape, Texas, Tennessee, and South Dakota.
Texas (https://www.oag.state.tx.us/child-support/get-started/child-support-and-family-violence) had clear supports in place if the other parent was abusive — they make arrangements for parent 1 not to have to see parent 2 (abuser/rapist), not to divulge the address of parent 1 to parent 2 during the process of getting child support.
Tennessee (https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/human-services/documents/Safety%20Concerns%20Rack%20Card.pdf) mentioned that this problem might exist. They offered TANF (temporary assistance for needy families) as an alternative to child support from an abusive person. They also have a safe houses program to protect the privacy of family members subjected to abuse.
South Dakota barely acknowledged the problem (on their confusing website: https://dss.sd.gov/childsupport/parents.aspx). In their FAQ, at the end, they offered the following answers:
and
South Dakota’s website implies that if you have a child because you were raped, you either have to support the child on your own or get a protection order to protect yourself because you have to ask the other parent for child support payments to get any assistance from the state.
After reading South Dakota’s website, I was too discouraged to look at more states. I will try again tomorrow. I just feel so terrible for the possible 1200 women in South Dakota who are pregnant from rape with so little support from the state to help them put that trauma behind them and raise their child.
