Louisiana advances bill to make fathers share costs of pregnancy

Published: May 16, 2023

By: Claire Sullivan, LSU Manship School News Service

BATON ROUGE, La. — A bill that would allow mothers to recover half of out-of-pocket, pregnancy-related medical expenses from the father of their child cleared another hurdle Tuesday.

House Bill 5, by Rep. Lawrence “Larry” Frieman, R-Abita Springs, moved forward from the Senate Judiciary A Committee. It is one of several bills filed this session to address the realities of post-Roe v. Wade in Louisiana.

Mark Mansfield, who has practiced family law in St. Tammany Parish for more than 20 years, said he began talking about legislation like this with fellow lawyers around the time of the Supreme Court decision that triggered a near-total abortion ban in the state last summer.

“For those of those that are pregnant, we want to give them a chance to recover the expenses the same way they can do when the child is alive,” Mansfield said.