IS NO-FAULT DIVORCE UNCONSTITUTIONAL?

A Retired Judge’s Opinion

January 2002

To your characterization of no-fault divorce laws as both “ungodly” and “inhumane,” I would add “unconstitutional” as well. The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution guarantee citizens the right to “due process” in respect to safeguards against violation of life, liberty, and property.

A plausible argument can be made that no-fault divorce laws violate a non-consenting spouse’s due process as well as Article I, Section 10’s prohibition that “no state shall … pass any … law impairing the obligation of contracts ….” The intent of this latter clause is to prevent state governments from passing laws that would release a party from an obligation to which his contract bound him.

America is paying a heavy price for its acquiescence in such error, as the data shows that divorce increases the national incidence of crime, abuse, addiction, decreases the capacity to learn, decreases graduation rates, lowers income and raises incidences of poverty, adult and juvenile suicide, and harmful mental and physical health effects.

Furthermore within family life divorce has the effect of increasing the incidence of weaker parent-child relationships; destructive ways of handling conflict within the family; diminished social competency with peers; a diminished sense of masculinity or femininity in adolescence; troubled courtships; increased premarital teenage sexual activity, number of sexual partners during adolescence, and out-of-wedlock childbirths; higher numbers of children leaving home earlier, as well as higher levels of cohabitation for these children; and- keeping the cycle expanding – higher rates of divorce for the children of divorced parents.

Let’s pray that right-thinking Americans will become energized to bring about needed reform. With the highest per capita church attendance in America, Louisiana would certainly appear to be a likely place to start. We would welcome co-laborers in this cause.

Judge Darrell White (retired)
CEO, Louisiana Family Forum
655 St. Ferdinand St.
Baton Rouge, LA 70802
(800) 606-6470
(225) 344-8533
http://lafamilyforum.org/