State representative Ashley Aune is trying to fight it, but doesn’t have high hopes.
Something you might have picked up on over the last several weeks/years/centuries is that there are a disturbing number of people in power who will go to great lengths to control women in America. Not convinced? Thinking of citing the fact that in some countries, women are stoned to death (as though that makes what happens here okay)? Then we’d like to make you aware of a law in Missouri that says pregnant women cannot get a divorce finalized if they’re pregnant—even if said pregnant people are victims of domestic violence.
Honestly, the rules and laws on divorce are so wild across the country. I was married in California but my husband left after 6 months. I hadn’t see him in 9 or 10 years, had no idea where he was.
Because I was in the state of Kentucky when I filed, I had to go to a church run “divorce education class” on how to save my marriage and complete a little workbook.
Completely insane class, I stayed in the back and tried to stay silent, but the teacher forced me to participate and asked some leading question about how I could communicate better with my spouse to prevent a divorce or some shit.
Told her I had no idea where my spouse was, that he had left after 6 months and that I had to hire a private investigator (and a police officer!) to serve my divorce papers. The whole thing was nuts.
Especially if they’re victims of domestic violence
Male or female, what other purpose could a law like this serve except to give abusers a route to legally trap their victim?
To stop fathers abandoning the family when the wife gets pregnant and using a loophole to get out of child support.
Last time this came up on Lemmy there was a comment saying that’s where the law came from originally.
It doesn’t stop you separating during pregnancy, just to complete the divorce you have to wait till after the birth.
How would that time actually prevent the scenario you described? You don’t have to be married to be a father.
I think some comments were saying it’s because of how laws used to work of assuming (to a certain degree) fatherhood of the husband in a marriage. I.e., in a time before DNA testing, if the father divorces while his wife is pregnant, then once the baby is born he’s out of the picture and escaped responsibility, but after the birth, his responsibility as father has to be discussed as part of the divorce settlement. (Other comments in this thread and before, had more detail, and some commenters seemed to have looked things up and know what they’re talking about!)
Another comment said it stops the mother from skipping out on the father and denying him joint custody/etc. Again, due to legal frameworks around marriage and family especially from a time before DNA testing. Obviously you (should) still have courts that can get involved to resolve cases that don’t fit the normal framework.
Another brought up more detail of just settling the divorce terms appropriately. I know the baby (in some countries at least) is not a legal person until born: so for some other parts of legal structure (other than this divorce issue), people involved can be aware there is a baby on the way, but the law has to wait until the birth to actually account for that new person.
One point I didn’t see mentioned, but that I can imagine, is that pregnancy is a time of new stress and much change, which could push one or other partner to divorce rashly and regret it later. As others pointed out, you can still separate, just not finalise the legal divorce. Then after the birth you have time to see if you want to be together as a family again, or if you do indeed want a divorce.
For those who don’t have time to read the title or the article:
Missouri insane
Its a two way street. Men cant get divorced either.
It’s there on the books due to child custody issues. A wife who’s married and gives birth has the husband put in as the father. If unmarried, a woman can put in “unknown” as the father and take away all of his rights to see his kid or have anything to do with his child until a nice lengthy and costly amount of court, which gets even more difficult if the mom leaves the state.
So short version is that the law prevents one parent from trying to prevent the other parent from having any form of child custody.
Brother, this law is just deranged. Trapping people in a marriage is not OK.
Divorce includes agreements over custody, why not consider an expected child into that as well?
Because nothing stops a woman from writing in “unknown” on the birth certificate. There’s also no “trap” of keeping a person into a marriage. It’s not the 1800’s. Being married or not doesn’t change virtually anything you can do.
So why not change the law to, when getting a divorce during pregnancy you have to sign a paper promising he is the official dad and let them divorce anyway?
I mean I get that it’s not up to the victim to decide if the guy is capable of being a father, there’s other systems in place for that. But you just can’t lock someone up with a partner they don’t want in any circumstance.
Filing and forcing paternity tests isn’t free. Especially if they’ve left the state. Many times you’ll have to pay a lawyer to process and get it done. Plus you have to find where they’re at to start the legal process. In the mean time you can go months without getting to see your child.
This is insane! I’m so confused about why a pregnancy and a divorce have to be mutually exclusive. What was this intended to prevent? Other than the obvious reason of controlling women.
Can’t read the entire article. Is this something new?
Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas. Lawmakers claim it’s to prevent issues with things like child support, visitation, etc, before paternity can be established. This article does a pretty good job summarizing the situations:
I’m a paralegal, and Wisconsin is the same. We had a headache in one case a couple years ago where nobody knew the other party was pregnant, not even her attorney, until the final hearing and she was asked the generic question about pregnancy before finalizing. We then had to do a partial final judgment and schedule another final hearing a couple of months after her expected due date to fully finalize it.
Most contested divorces take more than nine months anyways, and you don’t need a divorce to separate and get into a safe space. Typically separation happens before the legal process starts, and even if you wanted to get remarried there is an intermediate ‘bifurcation’ step which can end the marriage legally before the divorce is finalized.
This is just a legal convenience for the court, but who doesn’t love a little rage bait?
I can’t even imagine how many things being legally married to someone who isn’t your partner would influence. From how you fill out taxes, to emergency contact forms, to power of attorney, to immigration sponsorship. A child should not be a weapon to keep people married together and if that means a tiny bit more work for some civil servant in a weird black dress then so be it.
I was hoping it was some old bullshit on the books nobody looks at anymore. Do people tho? I have been here in MO my whole life and this is the first ive heard of this. Is it something they actually enforce?
It sounds like this it is actively preventing people from getting divorced.
This is something that was brought to me by folks in my community who shared that it was a huge problem,” Aune said. In a committee meeting, she shared the story of a woman affected by the existing law, saying: “Not only was she being physically and emotionally abused, but there was reproduction coercion used. When she found out she was pregnant and asked a lawyer if she could get a divorce, she was essentially told no. It was so demoralizing for her to hear that. She felt she had no options.”
