When the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v.
Wade in June 2022, overturning the constitutional right to an abortion, analysts predicted a wave of socially conservative legislation, particularly laws that chip away at women’s rights to individual freedoms. No-fault divorce is frequently cited as the next logical territory to roll back. “The drive to increase restrictions on divorce is part of .
.. an effort to re-entrench conservative family values, incentivize heterosexual marriage and childbearing, and disempower women,” writes Anna North in a recent Vox piece, No-fault divorce has been on the books for more than 50 years — first signed into law in California by then-Gov.
Ronald Reagan in 1969. By 2010, all 50 states had no-fault divorce options, which means couples across the U.S.
can obtain a divorce without one party having to allege or prove that the other party is to blame. The rise of no-fault divorce is linked to a significant drop in rates of intimate partner violence, spousal murder and . But opponents view the option as anti-family, making the dissolution of a sacred tradition all too expedient and tearing apart the moral fabric of society along the way.
“The socially conservative, and often religious, right-wing opponents of such divorce laws are arguing that the practice deprives people – mostly men – of due process and hurts families, and by extension, society,” Eric Berger writes in in The Guardian. “Republican lawmakers in Louisiana, Oklahoma, .
