{"id":9191,"date":"2026-04-18T05:50:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T10:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/westplexnews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/18\/missouri-passed-a-flawed-bill-regarding-divorce-rules-during-pregnancy\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T05:50:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T10:50:22","slug":"missouri-passed-a-flawed-bill-regarding-divorce-rules-during-pregnancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westplexnews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/18\/missouri-passed-a-flawed-bill-regarding-divorce-rules-during-pregnancy\/","title":{"rendered":"Missouri passed a flawed bill regarding divorce rules during pregnancy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City (Getty Images).<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a bill earlier this month passed unanimously by the legislature. It was intended to make the divorce process better for pregnant women. It might in some ways. But it will make things worse in others.<\/span><\/p>\n

Multiple lawmakers acknowledged to me or others that they understood the bill\u2019s problems and said they would address them. Then they all voted to pass it without offering any amendments.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a lesson in legislative advocacy: I thought I was harassing legislators about the problems with the bill, but I actually wasn\u2019t noisy enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

The intent of the bill was to clarify that despite the practice of waiting to finalize divorces until a child is born, which is <\/span>common across the country<\/span><\/a>, Missouri judges <\/span>do<\/span><\/i> have the authority to finalize divorces during pregnancy. Unfortunately, what the new legislation actually says is that judges <\/span>cannot<\/span><\/i> delay finalizing a divorce on the basis of pregnancy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In many cases the pregnant party will want that delay. There\u2019s no reason to take that option away from her.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gillian Chadwick, director of the Center for Children and Family Law at Washburn University in Kansas, put it to me like this:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>It\u2019s outrageous to disallow a court from delaying a final decree at the request of the pregnant party who wants to include a future child on a custody and support order. And at the same time, a lot of families are well served by including the future child on the orders, so they don\u2019t have to come back to court in the future.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The second bad thing in the legislation is that it maintains and reinforces the requirement that a person disclose whether she is pregnant in her divorce petition. In Chadwick\u2019s words, <\/span>mandatory disclosures \u201care outdated, unnecessarily intrusive, and have a chilling effect on pregnant women seeking a divorce.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Plus, this requirement has been a major source of confusion, causing women to believe, and <\/span>media to misreport<\/span><\/a>, that Missouri women cannot even <\/span>file<\/span><\/i> for divorce if pregnant or are otherwise forced to physically stay with violent husbands.<\/span><\/p>\n

And \u2014 a<\/span>s the bill\u2019s sponsors correctly and repeatedly explained \u2014 pregnancy greatly increases one\u2019s risk of being a victim of domestic violence and homicide. Worse, the time one files for divorce or an order of protection correlates with increased violence. I have not gotten <\/span>any answer from any legislator<\/span><\/i> as to why a woman should be required to tell her spouse that she is pregnant at that moment of increased risk of violence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The office of state Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern, who introduced the bill in the Senate, told me: \u201cMissouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence is in agreement that including the question during the petitioning process is unnecessary. Removing it would strengthen in law the ability of a judge to finalize a divorce and protect the privacy of the pregnant person.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So why aren\u2019t you removing that requirement?<\/span><\/p>\n

As to the no-pregnancy-delay provision, I told Nurrenberns\u2019s office that this would have the effect of allowing a husband to divorce his wife and kick her off his health insurance in the middle of her pregnancy. Nurrenbern\u2019s office responded that this isn\u2019t a problem because pregnant women can go on Medicaid.<\/span><\/p>\n

I found this shocking.<\/span><\/p>\n

Missouri\u2019s Medicaid system is highly dysfunctional. We have many horror stories of eligible individuals being unable to enroll, and women already enrolled being unable to reach the agency to inform them that they are pregnant, resulting in them being <\/span>unable to access prenatal care<\/span><\/i><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But even if we pretend for the sake of argument that switching to Medicaid is easy, that likely means losing your obstetrician because there aren\u2019t that many that take Medicaid. And finding a new obstetrician who does take Medicaid isn\u2019t simple in this state of maternity care deserts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The sponsors of this bill said it would protect women from abusive husbands. But it hands abusers a new tool. Financial abuse is common in abusive marriages. That is why filing for divorce triggers automatic protection orders in many jurisdictions, prohibiting things like dropping a spouse from an insurance plan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The bill\u2019s sponsors often noted to the media that it might be the husband who has reason to want to divorce before a child is born. Now that reason can be he wants to make life harder for his pregnant ex-wife.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bill was originally sponsored by House Minority Leader Ashley Aune, who told me and other outlets that it needed refinements. But legislators kept introducing it without the necessary and simple refinements.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

State Rep. Marlon Anderson, a lawyer, was one of three representatives to introduce the bill in the House last session. After I raised my concerns to him about it, he pulled the bill the next day. His office told me, \u201c<\/span>Rep. Anderson is withdrawing HB848 and having the wording changed as you brought to his attention. He appreciates this greatly.\u201d <\/span>Anderson went on to vote for the bill without any amendments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The needed tweaks were simple and straightforward. <\/span>In one meeting with two domestic violence advocates and a legal aid lawyer, we came up with alternative language. <\/span>Instead of:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pregnancy status shall not prevent the court from entering a judgment of dissolution of marriage or legal separation.<\/b><\/p>\n

The text should instead be something like:<\/span>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

The court has the authority to enter a judgment of dissolution of marriage or legal separation regardless of a party\u2019s pregnancy status.<\/b><\/p>\n

This is what we thought should be done about the disclosure requirement in the divorce petition. Just delete it, like this: <\/span>whether the wife is pregnant<\/b><\/del><\/p>\n

Two line bill, not rocket science. We shared this alternate text with legislators, some of whom said they would advance it.<\/span><\/p>\n

House sponsors Reps. Cecelie Williams and Raychel Proudie made it clear to me last session that they were not interested in discussing the unintended consequences of their bill, after many emails, submitting written testimony and sending articles.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So I thought the route to go was to get it fixed in the Senate.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wrote <\/span>a third article<\/span><\/a> about the problems last session, arguing that the bill should be amended in the Senate. I sent it to Nurrenbern\u2019s office, explaining I was appealing to her to fix her bill. I asked others to reach out to her.<\/span><\/p>\n

No amendment last session. Identical bill introduced by multiple legislators this session. It passed unanimously. It looks to me like indifference to the practical implications of the legislation.<\/span><\/p>\n

In celebrating the passage of the bill, Rep. Williams claimed the legislation will reduce abortions, while bill author Rep. Aune had claimed Missouri\u2019s abortion ban was a reason the bill was needed. The anti-choicers and the pro-choicers were aligned in their irresponsible messaging. They spread the potentially fatal myth that a victim of violence who wanted to continue her pregnancy had to stay and endure further violence rather than leaving, filing for divorce, and getting an order of protection.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now we have legislation that fails to eliminate the source of this myth, and newly restricts the options of a pregnant woman going through a divorce. I hope other states don\u2019t look to us as an example.<\/span><\/p>\n

So how did this happen?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Legislators willing to give me some response about why they voted for a bill that I thought they understood had problems told me: \u201cthere wasn\u2019t the appetite\u201d, \u201cit wasn\u2019t on my radar,\u201d \u201cthis is when I wish I had a law degree.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The best information I\u2019ve gotten is from my state representative, Ian Mackey.<\/span><\/p>\n

I emailed him last session. Mackey, who is a lawyer, told me that he had raised the problems with the bill before I contacted him about them. He said he would talk to the sponsors in the House. Which he did, to no avail.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This session, I asked Mackey why he voted for the bill he knew to be flawed. He said he didn\u2019t remember our correspondence about this, which I think is true. I didn\u2019t contact him this session. That\u2019s my bad.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mackey explained that if there is no opposition, he votes with his caucus. This makes sense. It\u2019s a part-time job and there\u2019s a lot going on.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The moral of the story is, I have to yell louder and get more people to yell with me. I shouldn\u2019t have thought it was enough for lawmakers to tell me they agree that there\u2019s a problem. I should have showed up in person to testify against the bill. I should have kept calling and emailing until someone amended the bill. I needed to do more to make them care.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But also, Missouri Democrats should do better. As a super minority, they have little power. The one thing they can do is not introduce harmful bills, and fix them if they do.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City (Getty Images). Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a bill earlier this month passed unanimously by the legislature. It was intended to make the divorce process better for pregnant women. It might in some ways. But it will make things worse in others. Multiple lawmakers acknowledged to me or others…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMissouri passed a flawed bill regarding divorce rules during pregnancy - WestplexNews.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/westplexnews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/18\/missouri-passed-a-flawed-bill-regarding-divorce-rules-during-pregnancy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Missouri passed a flawed bill regarding divorce rules during pregnancy - WestplexNews.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City (Getty Images). 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Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a bill earlier this month passed unanimously by the legislature. It was intended to make the divorce process better for pregnant women. It might in some ways. But it will make things worse in others. 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