Pregnant women in Missouri can't get divorced. Critics say it fuels domestic violence
Pregnant women in Missouri can't get divorced. Critics say it fuels domestic violence
The turning point for Destonee was a car ride.
She describes a scene of emotional abuse: Pregnant with her third child, her husband yelled at her while her older two kids listened in the car. "He would call me awful things in front of them," she says. "And soon my son would call me those names too."
She made up her mind to leave him, but when she went to a lawyer to file for divorce, she was told to come back when she was no longer pregnant.
Destonee requested she be identified by only her first name. She says she still lives with abusive threats from her ex-husband. She couldn't end her marriage because Missouri law requires women seeking divorce to disclose whether they're pregnant — and state judges won't finalize divorces during a pregnancy. Established in the 1970s, the rule was intended to make sure men were financially accountable for the children they fathered.
Women are property. That’s conservative shit. They want this to be the norm. All conservatives are bastards.
And I don't understand why any woman votes conservative, knowing that conservatives actively want to destroy their rights. They already done so with abortion.
Lack of empathy. In their minds it will never be them who is tricked into an abusive marriage or will need the abortion or get sick or hurt and need assistance or want things people twll them they shouldn't. Those are the things that happen to the dumb and immoral people do and to their mind those people deserve to struggle as consequences for their sins. They are comfortable feeling that they are counted among the narrowly defined righteous and they will never waver... Because deep down they know that if they let go of that comfort of feeling absolutely resolute they are the model on which the rest of womanhood should aspire to be then they have to reckon with all the pain they caused to people.
At the base of it please remember anyone who you can define to be in a group by identity are at base still a human. All humans are capable of fucking up, being stupid or tricked with words regardless of their appearance. That there is why your disgust or respect should be assessed at them being a human regardless of their gender. Equal rights and everything
It's pretty upsetting to begin with, but if you change the wording to: "Pregnant women in Missouri don't have the right to get divorced" it's somehow even worse.
The original intent seems to be the opposite. It was supposed to stop men from divorcing and avoiding financial responsibility of the child, it's in the article.
It's an awful rule even with that in mind though.
... state judges won't finalize divorces during a pregnancy. Established in the 1970s, the rule was intended to make sure men were financially accountable for the children they fathered.
So, I'm assuming if you knock someone up in Missouri without being married, you don't have to pay child support?
Are judges in Missouri just too damn stupid to include conceived but as yet unborn children in any child support requirements?
Or perhaps, it's just about making sure men can continue to abuse their own "property"?
This law came around before DNA sequencing was common, they probably had some kind of archaic law making it hard to pin paternity on an unmarried father since you couldn’t just order a DNA test to show who created the baby.
Well domestic violence is a cornerstone of Missouri Republican and the greater Republican party set of values after all.
Under his eye.
What? For reals?
just glass the south
Calm down there, Sherman
seriously
Dont glass it. theres good farmland there.
Just virusbomb it. #40kSolutions
Nah we just gotta do us a reconstruction. We always were supposed to. Unfortunately capitalists really fucked it up
Sounds reasonable.
WTAF?
But she can still leave without getting divorced, the divorce part can wait...
If she abandons the house and kids, it reflects poorly when custody, alimony, the house, etc are heard
That is an incredibly short sighted view, and I highly encourage you to expand your horizons.
Yeah, better stay in an abusive relationship and put herself in danger instead
Let me guess Missouri also assumes the father of a child is the husband, and even with modern DNA testing won't change that even if it's proven wrong. So the husband of a cheater that gets pregnant would be on the hook for child support for a child that was not his.
EDIT: I make a semi-related post pointing out other fucked up State marriage rights shit and somehow people try and twist that around as if I'm saying the OP doesn't matter. No wonder nothing worthwhile gets fixed in this goddamned country while companies run roughshod over everyone. People are too busy arguing with each other over an opinion they disagree with, that they made up in a comment section of a website that doesn't fucking matter.
Well yeah, of course the problem here would be child support and not divorce is functionally impossible in Missouri.
I'm not saying it's not an issue at all, only an idiot could read by previous post in that way. But I guess I just consider that a lower overall priority than the State forcing someone to pay for another person's child for 18 years while the actual father gets off scot free. A lot of people live their lives separated from their spouse but not divorced every single day, even in states where divorce is easy.
But really I was just pointing out other ass-backwards laws various states have around marriage rights. Like the fact that even in 2024 there are several states that consider marital rape separate and treat it different than "regular" rape cases. Just because you're married, if you are raped by your spouse it's treated differently than if it were literally any other human on the planet. In some cases either with lighter sentencing or in a few cases, not a crime at all. In California for instance, even with the latest updates signed into law in 2021, sexual intercourse with a person who is "incapable of giving legal consent because of mental disorder or developmental or physical disability" is not rape if the 2 people are married. So it's totally cool as long as the spouse is disabled, and unable to defend themselves.
I'd say that's a pretty big issue as well, but I guess divorce is a bigger issue than the State forcing someone to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars through no fault of their own, or literal rape. Those are definitely tiny issues compared to a divorce, hardly worth even pointing out really.