"December 2020 was a turbulent month for Danielle Drake, 32, of Lake of the Ozarks. On December 1, her husband said he was going out with a friend, but he lied. He was actually having an affair. She filed for a divorce less than a week later, on December 7.
Then, not long before Christmas, Drake found out she was pregnant.
Drake knew immediately she had to file a second, amended petition for divorce. She also knew the impact her pregnancy would have on the divorce proceedings. Drake, who earned a law degree from University of Missouri Kansas City has been practicing family law for two years, was well aware that in Missouri, women who are pregnant can't get a divorce.
Missouri law states that a petition for divorce must provide eight pieces of information, things like the residence of each party, the date of separation, and, notably, “whether the wife is pregnant.” If the answer is yes, Drake says, "What that practically does is put your case on hold."
Read the full piece here: https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news/pregnant-women-cant-get-divorced-in-missouri-38092512
Y’all are burying the lede here:
“[T]he whole basis for Missouri putting the pause on a divorce proceeding until a child is born is because Missouri divorce law "does not see fetuses as humans.You can't have a court order that dictates visitation and child support for a child that doesn't exist," she says. "I have no mechanism as a lawyer to get that support going. There's nothing there because that's not a real person."
Meanwhile, the state of Missouri has recently outlawed abortion in nearly all instances, barring medical emergencies.
🤔🙃🤬