The FL law has required an exhaustive search for the father. Previously, this has been interpreted as the mother placing HER name in the paper. A politician (as I use even that term loosely) state Sen. Walter ‘‘Skip’’ Campbell, D-Tamarac, sponsored the bill which according to the Miami Herald, said
Not every man she has had sex with, just the likely candidates for Poppa. If she has the name, they can likely be contacted through more discreet means. This is kinda the last ditch effort.
Peter Blanc, a judge recently ruled that is unconstitutional. And yes, it is abhorrent. It is also under attack and revision.
I would like to ask those who are crying the “protect the child” argument, how they are going to specifically protect the children whose mothers do not want them but are unwilling to comply with requirements of the Florida law?
My question (maybe I’ve worked w/felons for too long 'cause this was my first thought):
how on earth do they know the mom’s telling the truth?
In the first place, it’d be easy enough for her (if she’s wanting to have the child adopted out) to find some one, claim it’s the daddy, have them sign off and be done w/it (IIRC that was what happened in the Baby Jessica ? case - a MI couple lost out on the child when birth mother eventually married birth father).
Secondly - what if she simply lies and says either “I can’t remember”, or “JOhn Smith” (when it was really Fred Jones).
In addition, I also am concerned w/ what Diane mentioned - the spitefullness (he turned me down and now he’s getting married, I’ll show him).
But I’ll also grant you that there’s no real easy answer, either. I am very simpathetic to the male who would like to parent his child (vs. having it adopted), but so far, haven’t come up w/ a way to insure it w/reasonable success.
One of the problems here is that legislators, especially unsophisticated legislators with little exposure to the operations of the courts other than catching Judge Judy’s show, are looking for a quick way to shut a noisy constituent up and have a fundamental distrust of judges and lawyers. The natural consequence is mandatory sentences and things like the Florida “kiss and tell” statute.
Regrettably, we had a case in Iowa a few years ago that is grist for the mill that produces unwise statutes like this one. You may remember the Baby Jessica Adoption Case. In that case the natural mother identified some guy as the child’s father when the child was born. Later when the child was in the adoption pipeline that guy consented to the adoption and to the termination of his parental rights. After the child was placed with adoptive parents in Michigan the natural mother got cozy with another old boy friend and told him about the child. The old boy friend announced that he, not the guy who had been involved in the adoption preliminaries, was the child’s father. As things turned out he was. Under the Iowa statutes on adoption the parental rights/adoption thing was set aside. The child was removed from the custody of good people who were the only parents she knew and with whom she had lived for, I think, two years. The whole thing was a huge mess.
Given the Iowa case we are just lucky that the Florida statute does not require genetic testing of identified fathers and “kiss and tell” published notices in all cases. This is a tough call because there is a terrible conflict between the impulse to want the child in the best home it can have and the impulse to allow people who want to raise their own children to do so. It is not made any easier that often the mother is pitifully young, scared, and on her own. Were I one of those young women I would be terribly tempted to run the gauntlet of Right to Life pickets at the local women’s reproductive health center before I submitted to the humiliation of explaining to some State social worker just who I had dallied with, when and where, and have it put in the legal notices section of the news paper for the inspection and titillation of the curious
Thanks for the responses everyone. My initial reactions to sexual matters tends to skew naive and prudish, so I can’t conceive, if you will, of a man being unaware that he had fathered a child. Then my awareness of reality kicks in.
I have a few problems with the notification required. First of all, I grew up in a small town at the wrong end of the social spectrum. While I’d assume it’s somewhat better for adults than children, posting such a notice could be devastating. Second, place of conception is not necessarily related to where either party lives. Just think of what I hear of spring break in Florida alone. Third, as others have pointed out, there is nothing to keep a woman from lying. Fourth, I can’t see this discouraging adoptions in Florida, with more women arranging for them out of state, if possible, having abortions, or raising children they’re not prepared to care for.
I have to be careful here. As I mentioned, this is a social phenomenon which I do not understand, and I could very easily go as judgemental as any hard-core Fundamentalist. Yes, father’s should be identified, but I honestly don’t understand why, if a man has been out of touch with a woman he had sex with long enough to be unaware that she had become pregnant and delivered a child, he should have any claim to parental rights. You hear a great deal of outcry from people about “single mothers”; this situation would result in a single father, effectively, (yes, I know this is not 100% true), so why no similar outcry. Sua Sponte, I have read your example, and I realize that women and men lie, but, again, it’s something I have a hard time wrapping my mind around. Please forgive my hard-headed naivete. I can be taught, but there are some lessons I think I don’t want to learn.
Bricker, can you or someone else clear this question up for me? In the UK, you can’t just ‘put the father’s name’ on the birth certificate; if you are unmarried, the father must be present when the birth is registered. Otherwise the mother could put any old name down - Elvis Presley could still be legally fathering children today. Isn’t this the case in the US?
IMHO, before such hamfisted legislation is enforced, there should be an objective study as to whether it would actually be effective. I seriously can’t see many men happening to read the classified section of the Miami Herald (or whichever paper), spotting someone they might have got pregnant in some club, and rushing to phone for their paternal rights. I can foresee timewasters calling up who either genuinely think they’re the father when they’re not, or are just seeking attention. I would also think there are cases where the mother does know who the father is, and he knows he’s fathered a child, but wants to keep it a secret (e.g. because he’s married or in public office). Not to make exceptions for rape cases is inhumane.
It is in the best interests of the child that they know their biological parentage. However, it is also in the child’s best interests to ensure that they are in a safe, loving, secure environment. If this legislation interferes with attaining all those other best interests (as it seems to in the linked case), then it is bad law.
I believe that in at least some parts of the US, you can “just put the father’s name down” but that doesn’t in itself have much significance- a man isn’t necessarily liable for child support or eligible for custody or visitation just because his name is on the birth certificate. In NY, at least, those issues require that either the parents be married or that there be an order of paternity issued by a court,
BTW, Oregon has the other end of adoption law. If the biological father of the child wasn’t around long enough to realize his partner was pregnant, he isn’t a father, wasn’t supportive of the pregnancy and is a mere sperm donor - provider of genetic material - and has no rights.
They seem to draw a pretty distinct line in the sand on the difference between being a biological father and being the Dad.
I think the theory is that, if the child’s father wants to raise him, in principle this is a better option for the child than adoption (or, at any rate, it may be).
I think the theory is sound. But in practice I doubt very much whether this measure will in fact result in many, or any, fathers being tracked down to opt to raise the child. At the very least there should be no requirement to advertise unless a consideratoin of the specific facts of the case suggest that there is a realistic possibility that advertising will succeed in identifying the father.
Secondly, if the child is to be adopted, it is in his or her interests to be adopted in circumstances where there is no possibility of a subsequent challenge from the father.
Again, this is true, but in my view it is better addressed by limiting the rights of the father the challenge the adoption in these circumstances.
If the father doesn’t know he even has a child I find it hard to believe he would make a better father than someone who specifically wants a child enough to adopt.
This just smacks a little too much of the scarlet letter for me. It sure sounds to me like the real reason for the law is to force sexually active women to be punished for their “sins”.
Honestly, I think a couple who has gotten through the pre-adoption process is going to be a better life for any kid than living with some guy who our mother met on spring break in Florida.
If we are going to go through the whining about the child’s interest, adoptive parents are probably the bets. How many of us have moaned about how people should have licences for raising kids? Adoptive parents have those! But I know I have funny views on these things.
I think SuaSponte demonstrated the flaw in this argument above. It’s not that hard to imagine two people being in a relationship, birth control failing, and a breakup before the woman finds out she’s pregnant. If she doesn’t tell the man, how would he know? Should he make regular calls to each woman he’s slept with to make sure she’s not pregnant?
Is it really too much to expect that someone know the names of the people he or she has sex with?
And that is an example of a case when the woman should contact the man. The problem with laws is that they are blunt instruments, the people involved can decide on a case by case basis what is right- the law can not. If a woman decides not to inform the father of a baby, she knows a hell of a lot more about the guy than any judge does.
More importantly, the very cases you feel so judgmental about are the cases where discouraging adoption is most decidedly not in the best interest of the child.
Call me strangely old-fashioned, even prudish, but it seems to me that you’re hitting on a deeper problem here. Perhaps if people were in relationships with a deeper level of commitment before they started having sex with one another, (oh, you know, maybe that odd, bizarre thing called marriage, even) then chances of breaking up before learning of a pregnancy would be lessened, and when it did occur, maybe she’d be more inclined to have the common decency to let the father know.
Meanwhile, let’s see. I’m 12. I’m pregnant because my 20 year old half-brother said that I had to have sex with him, and this is the result. He’s told me that if I tell anyone, they won’t believe me, and that if they do, then I will be the one in trouble, because only bad girls do what he’s made me do. I believe him because I’m naive and sheltered and I’ve had a terribly inadequate sexual education. I don’t know anything about abortion, I’m not even sure that I’m pregnant, when I do figure it out I’m too afraid to tell anyone.
Once my parents figure it out, there’s no choice left for me but to have the baby. But I’m 12. I’m not going to keep the baby myself, that’s insanity, and really, I don’t want it. It’s just a reminder of the terrible thing that my brother made me do. My parents decide that I should put the baby up for adoption, I agree, but under the law, I’m emancipated by virtue of the pregnancy, so all of the legal obligations fall on me.
I haven’t been raped under the law – I never reported anything. The baby is born, I’m ready to give her up, but I’m still too afraid to name my half-brother as her father. He still lives in the house! I’m already in enough trouble as it is. (Certainly my parents aren’t happy about me being pregnant, especially since I refuse to tell them who the boy is who made me that way.) But the law says that if I can’t name the father, I now have to publish this newspaper ad. What do I say?
Sally Doe. Age 12. 4’8" brown hair, blue eyes, typically seen in Britney Spears t-shirts and blue jeans except on school days when I have to wear the uniform of St. Agnes Catholic School. Conceived the week of January 1-7, 2002. Possible fathers: unknown.
But unknown won’t cut it. I have to either make something up which will garner no results (but will draw out the length of time before I can adopt the baby out considerably) or make something up that’s close to the truth (a description of my half-brother) which I hope isn’t close enough to garner me whatever retribution I fear from him.
A 12 year old is not emancipated by becoming pregnant; and
Under the law, a 12 year old has been raped if she is pregnant, regardless of whether or not she has reported the rape. It’s called statutory rape. The pregnancy of a 12 year old is conclusive evidence that she has been raped, and the rape may be prosecuted even after the child’s birth. Further, it will be investigated - doctors and hospitals are obligated to report that a 12 year old girl has given birth/been in for pre-natal care.
So, your 12 year old will not have to put out an ad.
Why do you assume this scenario would occur only in a “non-committed” relationship? The exact same sequence of events could occur when the couple has been together for years. The length and depth of the prior relationship has no impact on the timing of a breakup, or whether the woman would have the “common decency” to let the father know. Indeed, with the greater emotions involved in the ending of a long-term and committed relationship, it is perhaps more likely that the end will be abrupt and bitter.