Bill allowing pregnant women to seek divorce awaits Governor’s signature

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (KQTV) -- In 2005, Cecelie Williams was a 25-year-old mother of three who was excitedly expecting her fourth child. Things took a dark turn for her though when her then-husband spiraled into a deep drug and alcohol addiction.

What Williams had described as a "young and beautiful" relationship became abusive.

"I didn't realize how drastically it had changed him until it became very physical," Williams said. "It wasn't like I woke up one day and I was being abused. He slowly took pieces of me over time and I didn't recognize myself."

It was this slow descent into abuse and the reality that, if she left, she would be alone with three young children who influenced her decision to stay.

"I almost made it seem, with my coping mechanisms, that it was normal, and when you have small children, you oftentimes stay in situations that you normally wouldn't, especially when you're being manipulated," Williams explained. "I thought I was helping him by trying to fix his demons, but he became mine."

It was one fateful night that opened her eyes to the reality of her situation.

"After one night of terrible abuse where he had hit me in the face with a small bat and broke my jaw and my orbital bone, he left me on the floor and left our house," Williams detailed the event. "I had three small children and it was just a night of terror."

Williams described laying there, watching her children running around the house, leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind them that made her realize what she needed to do for herself, and the safety of her children.

"It was at that moment that I thought, 'this is not what your life is supposed to be like.' So the next morning, my mother-in-law received a call from school that the kids didn't show up to school and so she came and checked on me and she found me," Williams said. "When I was healed, I decided that I was going to get a divorce."

But that's when her plan to start her path toward safety came to a screeching halt.

"I went to try to get a divorce from my husband, but I was pregnant, and I was denied that ability to get the divorce," Williams said.

More than 20 years later, House Bill 1908 sits on Governor Mike Kehoe's desk. A bill that aims to change this reality that people across the state, like Williams, have experienced.

Now, Missouri State Representative Williams, a Republican from Dittmer, Missouri, and Co-Sponsor of the bill, said that when she went to file for divorce from her abuser, she was met with a pushback that she hadn't anticipated, and left her feeling like she had nowhere to turn.

"I went to file and they asked if [I was] pregnant. And I said, yes. And they said, 'well, we don't do that here. You have to wait until the pregnancy is finished, after you have the baby,'" Rep. Williams said. "It was devastating to me, I almost felt like the state of Missouri had failed me, because of this barrier that was placed."

YWCA St. Joseph CEO Danielle Brown said without the support of the state, not being able to divorce an abuser can lead to loss of hope in one's self.

"If the state doesn't recognize that you have the right and the opportunity to go out on your own and be independent and live free of violence, then it's kind of demoralizing," Brown said.

Meghann Kosma, a court and victim advocate with Maryville, Missouri-based advocacy organization, North Star Advocacy Center, said the original Act that Williams is seeking to amend, was originally written back in the 1970s to prevent men from abandoning their responsibilities as fathers.

However, Kosma said that it is outdated and has done more harm than good.

"Domestic violence is about power and control, so an abuser will go to any length to be able to maintain that power and control that they have over the victim," Kosma said. "Sometimes one of those ways is keeping a person pregnant because they know that they cannot get a divorce while the woman is pregnant."

Statistics from the March of Dimes found that one-in-six women are first abused during pregnancy, with more than 320,000 women abused by their partners during pregnancy each year.

The Missouri Perinatal Quality Collaborative (PQC) reports that homicide is among the leading causes of pregnancy-related deaths in Missouri.

"It is the reality that oftentimes violence will increase during pregnancy. The risk that a woman has staying with their abusive partner while she's pregnant can be deadly too," Kosma said.

Kosma said, when discussions of this bill popped up around North Star during its infancy last legislative session, she found that many clients of hers had dealt with the impacts of the inability to dissolve a marriage while pregnant.

"I didn't know it at the time that I was working with them, but that ended up being one of the reasons that it took them so long to get out of an abusive relationship because they were pregnant, and they didn't know that that was law," Kosma said.

Rep. Williams said the bill affects more than just women, but everyone in Missouri communities.

"We had someone who was in the Missouri National Guard, and he was deployed for nine months, and he came home and his wife was five months pregnant. Now, we know that biologically, that child is not his, but he too can't seek a divorce because his wife is pregnant," Williams said.

Rep. Williams said she took the pain she suffered and turned it into her purpose when she ran for office in 2024 to help other women and families heal and prevent the cycles of abuse from continuing.

"I knew that my first piece of legislation would be this. Because this was my goal. My goal as a legislator is to protect the most vulnerable in Missouri, and it doesn't matter if it's a veteran, if it's an elderly person, if it's a child, if it's a domestic abuse survivor, if it's if it's just a toddler who needs childcare, it doesn't matter," Rep. Williams said. "My goal is to make sure that they have what they need, what they deserve, and if I can invoke that change, then I will. And that's why this legislation is so important."

Brown wants to remind residents that there are so many resources available to help, not only yourself, but someone you may know through the process of escaping an abusive relationship, especially when considering children.

The YWCA is an available local resource to help walk those struggling through the steps and make the decision that is best.

"It's a hard, long road, but you can do that and seek help. We're here to help and there are a lot of other places in town to help too," said Brown.

HB 1908 passed through both the Missouri House of Representatives and the Senate. It is now on Governor Kehoe's desk awaiting his signature.

Tune into KQ2 News at 6 p.m. Thursday for this Special Report.