American Civil Liberties Union of Washington

The ACLU of Washington, the national ACLU Women’s Rights Project, and the Northwest Women’s Law Center filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting a pregnant woman’s right to end her marriage to her abusive husband. The brief challenged a judge’s decision to deny the woman’s divorce petition because she was pregnant.

Update, August 2, 2005: The Washington Court of Appeals held that it is improper to deny a divorce to a woman solely on the basis of pregnancy. The Court ruled that the state cannot deny a pregnant woman the right to file for divorce because the state’s Equal Rights Amendment “absolutely prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.”