446

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] mPony@lemmy.world 76 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] UndercoverUlrikHD@programming.dev 11 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] mPony@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

yeah it's not like they couldn't write something into law that dictates financial responsibility doesn't magically disappear when a divorce goes through. Pretty sure that's how it works in most places.

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Exactly, if you’re married at time of pregnancy and don’t have evidence of infidelity it should be assumed that you’re the father. But this is Missouri, it may be about finances, but it’s unlikely that that’s the entire goal.

[-] UndercoverUlrikHD@programming.dev 1 points 1 month ago

I don't know much about how USA/Missouri was in 1970, but I'll assume there was/is a lot of laws based around marriage as that was the norm for families back in the days. Might be as simple as the lawmakers being lazy and deciding it was easier to force people to stay married for the duration so they got the full legal framework as "protection".

this post was submitted on 04 May 2024
446 points (99.1% liked)

News

21695 readers
2959 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS