I know, that's the legal status, what I'm rejecting is his framing. From the article:
“For the sake of families, we should enact legislation to remove or radically reduce incidences of no-fault divorce,” Carson writes in “The Perilous Fight,” released Tuesday.
He's assuming that divorce is an easy-to-implement decision. In reality, and unless you're wealthy, it's not. It will often be a very risky decision as well as an expensive decision. Poor and middle class women will have to consider whether they can actually afford to leave, pay a separate rent, car payment, health insurance, etc.
In the case of families the state will often force the parents to remain in significant contact. Even if one spouse is abusive, joint custody (which requires substantial communication and collaboration) is the default in most (all?) states, and moving away from that can take years and hundreds of thousands in legal fees. More from the article:
“The reason this matters is that no-fault divorce legally allows marriages to end much more quickly than in previous decades. When there are relatively few legal or financial consequences connected with divorce, it’s natural for people to gravitate toward that option when their marriage hits a rough patch,” he adds. “What those people often don’t consider, however, is the harm — both present and future — inflicted on their children once a divorce is finalized.”
The financial and legal consequences can be inmense, and I reject the assumption that most parents "don't consider the harm" the decision will have on their children.
Tldr, - divorce can be extremely difficult, and Carson has no idea what he's talking about.
www.nbcnews.com
