A Note on "The Effects of Divorce on America"

The Executive Summary of the Heritage Foundation's June 5, 2000 paper, "The Effects of Divorce on America," and the full report are available from the link below. The news is not good.

The perspective taken by the Foundation is clearly party-line conservative: Reduce divorce, strengthen the family, encourage couples to remain married. Nothing wrong with that -- in principle. The reality of today's society is that such goals, while laudable, are not achievable to any measurable degree given the character of the modern American social structure.

Two of the primary problems for children in divorced situations, which in my and others' opinions contribute to the relative dysfunction of those children compared to those in intact families, is continued strife between the parents and the loss of one parent due to our corrupt family law system.

A more realistic and achievable goal would be to ensure legislatively that:

1. Children CANNOT be unequally separated from either parent by actions in equity (except, of course, where there is criminally proven abuse or neglect), but only by a conscious decision of the departing parent; and,
2. Because of this extreme reduction of judicial "discretion," the absolute presumption of equally shared parenting, and the complete abolition of the "best interests" standard and/or its re-definition as the status quo of the child at the time of divorce absent agreement of the parents to the contrary, there is, therefore, nothing to fight over regarding the kids, so don't start a fight -- you can't "win" anyway.

While many conservative groups will be arguing and fighting for the goals stated below, I believe another cadre of activists should be devoted to passing legislation as outlined above, which passage will happen much more quickly than the family-preservation objectives. Revisit to this site for the soon-to-be completed Uniform Parental Rights Enforcement and Protection Act (UPREPA), which is aimed at accomplishing the above goals.

The full Heritage Foundation report with extensive data is available at a link from the Summary web page: http://www.heritage.org/library/backgrounder/bg1373es.html.

Robert Muchnick
Executive Director
Center for Children's Justice, Inc.

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