You may have seen headlines recently about extremists going after no-fault divorce. “Yeah, okay, I’ve seen those stories,” your friends might say, “but… why would they do that?” The answer is simple: it’s about controlling women.
Critics of no-fault divorce, like JD Vance, claim that it’s bad for couples and especially bad for kids. But the data just doesn’t bear that out. Most recent studies show that it’s the conflict between parents that really affects kids, not whether they get a divorce. And contrary to his claims that Americans are changing spouses “like they’re changing their underwear” (what?), divorce rates have actually been falling over the past few decades. It’s true that divorce rates hit their peak in the 1980s after states began passing no-fault divorce laws, but they’ve been steadily decreasing since then.
But the really important thing to know is that no-fault divorce protects women. There was a 15% decrease in female suicides in states that passed no-fault divorce laws and a 30% decrease in domestic violence. Each one of those statistics is a real story — and you can hear some of them in this week’s episode.
A few years ago, an end to no-fault divorce seemed unlikely. But after the end of Roe v Wade, of course this is the next legal right to land on the chopping block. So far, bills to overturn no-fault divorce have been unsuccessful, even in states where they’ve been proposed like Texas and Oklahoma. But extremists aren’t going to stop their attack on women, and it’s up to us to keep talking about it.
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