Missouri
A Missouri law forbids pregnant women from divorce. A proposed bill looks to change that.
A bill aims to protect pregnant women who may be in domestic violence situations. Those facing domestic abuse can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 or text “START” to 88788.
A controversial law in Missouri doesn’t allow pregnant women to get divorced. The legislation has been in place for 50 years, but there is now a push by a Democratic state representative to overturn it.
The state’s law was initially meant to “prevent what the courts consider the ‘bastardization’ of a child,” Missouri House Rep. Ashley Aune, a Democrat who represents the 14th district in Kansas City, told USA TODAY.
The law was aimed at protecting families and basically made it illegal for pregnant couples to get a divorce before the mother gives birth.
Aune sponsored House Bill 2402. The bill has bipartisan support and is co-sponsored by Rep. Richard Brown (Democrat, 27 District), Rep. Jeff Farnan (Republican, 1 District) and Rep. Sherri Gallick (Republican, 62 District).
The bill would allow “the court to enter a judgment of dissolution of marriage or legal separation if a person is pregnant.” In layman’s terms, it would give pregnant woman the ability to get a divorce finalized.
“Women are terrified for a million other reasons, let’s not give them one more,” said Aune. “Let’s give [women] a break.”
Law could lead to dangerous domestic violence situations
Aune says the issue was brought to her attention by Synergy Services, a Missouri shelter that provides women and their families a safe haven from violent situations.
“The intents [of the law] were noble and I can respect where they came from, however when we know better, we do better,” said Aune. “We know domestic violence is all too common, and one really distressing type of domestic violence is reproductive coercion, and often what that looks like is either an insistence or denial of pregnancy termination and sabotaging birth control.”
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists defines reproductive coercion as “behavior that interferes with contraception use and pregnancy.” It is also commonly called “baby trapping” and can happen to both women and men.
Domestic violence: Minnesota shooting highlights dangers on calls for first responders and victims
Domestic violence advocate says the law gives abusers an advantage
Sara Brammer, the VP of Domestic Violence Services at Synergy Services in Kansas City, said that abusers are very conscious of this law and can use it to keep their spouses from divorcing them.
Brammer is responsible for Synergy’s domestic violence shelter and domestic violence housing program. She also directs Synergy’s Offender Intervention Program.
Around 80% of the people in the program were referred to the program via the court. The time spent in it ranges from 26 to 58 weeks and varies based on how high a survivor’s risk of death is from the violence they experienced. The program consists of seven groups made up of 12 to 15 people each that meet each week.
“I have heard it on both sides that both women feel coerced and not able to divorce, and men are conscious to the fact that [women] can’t get divorced when they’re pregnant,” Brammer told USA TODAY. “And they use that against their partner.”
Brammer said one of the men who was in the program tracked his wife’s ovulation cycle on his cell phone so he could make sure she was always pregnant while she was with him.
“We’re talking about something that is absolutely very coercive and manipulative,” said Brammer. “And there’s a law that supports that.”
She continues on to say that the law not only makes it more difficult for people to leave abusive situations, but it makes the people in those situations feel “powerless.”
Proposed bill is a way out of ‘bad situations’ for women and men, Rep. Aune says
“I have seen friends whose partners [were] incredible partners until they got pregnant, and then all of a sudden they became monsters,” said Aune
Aune said it’s time to give people another option to get out of marriages like the examples she gave. She believes this house bill will help men and women get out of “bad situations” that they are stuck in because of a pregnancy.
Aune said that since this bill gained publicity, men on Reddit are speaking up and saying that this law prevented them from getting out of their marriages.
One example Aune gave was a man whose wife became pregnant when he was deployed overseas.
“There’s obviously no way he was the father,” said Aune. “He was overseas, but he couldn’t divorce his wife.”
According to Aune, if a man’s wife is pregnant, he can’t leave her because the state automatically assumes he is the baby’s father because of their marriage.
A different Reddit user said that despite being separated from his wife, he wasn’t able to divorce her when she got pregnant with the man she was living with at the time of the separation. He says they weren’t allowed to divorce until the baby was born.
Next steps for the proposed bill that would overturn Missouri divorce law
The bill now heads to a House committee for a vote in order to advance. If that happens, next steps in the legislative process will include approval by the full state House and full state Senate. From there, it would end up on the governor’s desk awaiting his signature to officially become a law.
What other states have a divorce law like Missouri’s?
Currently, four states have bans that prevent pregnant women from getting divorced:
- Arkansas
- Arizona
- Missouri
- Texas
Julia is a trending reporter for USA TODAY. She has covered various topics, from local businesses and government in her hometown, Miami, to tech and pop culture. You can follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, Instagram and TikTok: @juliamariegz.
July 11 (UPI) — One person was found dead and hundreds evacuated in Missouri after an intense day of flash flooding across the state, authorities said Saturday.
More than 350 people were rescued in Iron, Reynolds and Crawford counties on Friday as floodwaters rapidly took over the area.
Officials said 250 of those were staff and children at Camp Taum Sauk, all of whom were safely evacuated. Another 100 were water rescues.
“It was very harrowing,” Jennifer Box, mother of of two you boys at the camp, told The New York Times. “We knew they were safe, but we didn’t know how to get to them, and that’s kind of your worst nightmare.”
One Crawford County woman, Faith Gregory, was found dead a mile downstream from her home in Huzzah Creek, officials said.
Authorities said Gregory was swept away after part of her home collapsed in the floodwaters.
“It’s definitely not the outcome we were hoping for, but it’s a tragic reminder of how strong Mother Nature can be and how forceful it can be,” Missouri State Highway Patrol Sergeant Eddie Young told FOX Weather.
The region was battered by more than 12 inches of rain, leaving many area residents remained strained throughout Saturday.
“But they’re OK,” spokeswoman Kate Moore, of Missouri Region C, told ABC News. “They’re just stranded because the roads are washed away. We have a lot of damage — the trees, buildings, a lot of things have gone and ripped the roads away.”
Driving through the winding roads of Callaway County, often visible in the distance is a massive, 553-foot-tall concrete structure emitting what looks like white clouds.
“A lot of people think that’s smoke coming out of the top; it is not. That is water vapor,” said Travis Hart, manager of the Callaway nuclear power plant that produces 15% of Missouri’s electricity.
“The next structure that you see, this big rounded dome … that is the reactor building itself,” Hart said.
The single nuclear reactor near Fulton was built in the late 1970s and began generating electricity in 1984. Initially, the site was designed with two reactors in mind. But Hart said plans for a second unit came to a halt in the early ’80s due to decreasing electricity demand and rising costs.
Now, more than 40 years later, energy demand is growing due to increased manufacturing, adoption of electric vehicles and the development of AI data centers.
In a scramble for more power, tech companies and utilities are restarting formerly shuttered nuclear power plants, such as Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. In states like Missouri, politicians are eager to find ways to build new ones and expand existing plants like the one in Callaway County.
Debates about how to pay for the multibillion dollar projects resurfaced in the Missouri legislature this spring. While cost is the first hurdle to creating a new fleet of nuclear power plants in America, the actual construction of the facilities is the second.
Early this year, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed an executive order that creates the Advanced Nuclear Energy Task Force to “evaluate and guide” the state’s “strategic approach to nuclear energy development.”
Lost skills
The majority of the nuclear power plants in America were built between the 1960s and 1980s. Construction slowed in response to energy demand leveling out, increased safety regulations and public perception of nuclear power souring after the Three Mile Island accident.
Speaking at the University of Missouri in May, Director-General of the federal Nuclear Energy Agency William Magwood said building nuclear power plants is a skill, and America has gotten rusty.
“We used to be really good at building plants back in the ’60s and ’70s. How do we reconstruct that? That’s going to be a real challenge,” Magwood said.
The only new nuclear power facilities built in America in recent decades are the third and fourth reactors at the Vogtle electric plant near Waynesboro, Georgia. While the reactors came online in 2023 and 2024 and produce more than 1,000 megawatts of power each, the project was billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.
Magwood said a lot of what boggled the Vogtle construction was the lack of institutional knowledge about building nuclear power plants.
“We just didn’t know what we were doing,” he said. “We hadn’t built a nuclear plant in a generation. We didn’t have people who knew how to do it. We didn’t have the infrastructure. We didn’t have the supply chain. The regulator didn’t know what the hell they were doing. I was there, so I know.”
In South Carolina, efforts to construct a new nuclear power plant were abandoned after billions were spent and the company behind the project went bankrupt.
Kurt Schaefer is tasked with ensuring Missouri can avoid similar blunders.
The longtime politician and public servant has been dubbed “the leader of Missouri’s nuclear power renaissance” by UM System President Mun Choi, who has been enthusiastic about advancing nuclear power by hosting national energy leaders on campus in recent years.
In May, Kehoe appointed Schaefer as head of the state’s new nuclear power task force, a group of representatives from utility companies, higher education institutions, politicians, state utility regulators and trades workers all charged with finding a way to make new nuclear power a reality.
Schaefer said the first step to establishing more nuclear power in the state is finding the cash.
“It’s all about money,” he said. “It is expensive up front to build a plant and unless the federal government steps up, I just don’t see it happening.”
In June, the federal Department of Energy announced $17.5 billion in loans for utilities and energy companies to build 10 large-scale commercial nuclear reactors.
Schaefer wants one of those reactors to be in Missouri, ideally near the existing nuclear plant in Callaway County.
“We are really behind the eight ball here in the United States on nuclear power, but you’re seeing a big effort, particularly from the federal government, to move us in that direction,” he said.
As electricity demand continues to climb, Schaefer believes nuclear power is the best way for Missouri to meet that demand. The zero-carbon plants can generate energy around the clock, unlike solar and wind power that need the right conditions to produce power.
Plus, given the longevity of nuclear power facilities, Schafer sees them as a good investment. To him, a robust power supply means a booming economy.
“This is our future, this is what we have to do to keep Missouri economically viable and that’s what we’re gonna do,” Schaefer said.
Who goes first?
The ballooning costs of nuclear power plants isn’t a new issue.
“Any project that big takes years to complete and things may change in the meantime,” said Victor McFarland, University of Missouri energy historian. “The costs of your supplies might go up, the cost of labor might go up.”
Decades ago, when many of America’s atomic energy centers were built, inflation was high and budgets stretched beyond initial figures.
“So the original estimates for the construction of these plants that were true, say, in 1970, they weren’t true anymore in 1975 or 1980,” McFarland said. “There were big cost overruns.”
Now, as the world turns away from fossil fuels, Magwood said nuclear capacity needs to triple to meet the net zero by 2050 goals. Currently, the nuclear power industry does not benefit from economies of scale. Because new nuclear projects are rare, costs are high and supply chains aren’t fully developed, adding to the overall risk of the endeavor.
“One of the big problems is nobody wants to be first … everybody wants to go fourth,” Magwood said. “Believe it or not, that doesn’t work very well. Somebody has to bite the bullet. Somebody has to take the risk. And what I think the industry would really like would be if the government somehow put a safety net under the first projects.”
Ameren Missouri has been clear about its goals to develop additional nuclear power. The company is planning to add 1,500 megawatts of atomic energy to its portfolio by 2045.
Callaway nuclear plant manager Travis Hart is an electrician by trade and first set foot at the facility 25 years ago when he was hired to work on the refueling crew. He said that’s when he fell in love with the place.
“When I walked in here and saw the equipment, how it fits together, how it works, how the design was, it was just extremely interesting to me,” Hart said.
There are a number of reasons the Callaway site is suited for expansion, Hart said. The location has access to the power grid, water from the nearby Missouri River, and a largely supportive local community that fills the plant’s roughly 750 permanent jobs while the company pays $9.8 million in annual property taxes to Callaway County.
The Callaway Energy Center’s current operating license extends through 2044, and Hart is confident the company will receive approval to operate beyond that date.
“I tell my people here all the time, … ‘this is important, so we got to get it right, and we got to do a good job of it, and it’s okay to be proud of it, because it makes a difference,’” Hart said.
In the coming years, the state’s new nuclear power task force will assess Missouri’s readiness to provide the workforce, policies and supply chain needed to create the “nuclear power renaissance.”
This story was originally published by KBIA and shared through the Missouri News Network.
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