One of the best examples of shameless distortion you’re ever going to see concerns the new Florida adoption law. Simply put, the law says that a mother can’t put a child up for adoption without the father’s consent. The law is both necessary and fair because fathers already have the obligation to pay for the child’s and mother’s support, and it was mandated by a US Supreme Court case, Stanley v. Illinois that’s been settled law since 1972.
The spinners are up-in-arms about a publication provision that’s an obscure part of the consent requirement. Florida’s Sun-Sentinel reports:
When background searches don’t work, a birth mother must place legal notices about the adoption in a local newspaper where the baby was conceived.
Read the first few words carefully. The mother has to publish a list of possible fathers in a legal paper only if she can’t otherwise find the man whose DNA matches the child. She would only come to this pass if: a) she had sex with so many different men she couldn’t keep track of them all; or b) she deliberately tried to conceal the existence of the baby from its father. I don’t think either if these scenarios shows the mother in a sympathetic light.
The publication provision mirrors the law on legal service: if you need to serve somebody with legal papers, in some cases you can do so through the mail, and in other cases you have to serve them personally. If diligent efforts to locate the party fail, you can serve them by publishing a notice in the paper, but you have to be prepared for all kinds of foolishness if you do that. It’s best to fess up to the authorities and avoid the unpleasantness, girls.
The spin campaign on this law is nonetheless taking flight: Hardball had a segment on it with Jerry Falwell and NOW’s Kim Gandy both drooling agreement that it was a bad law, based on things the law doesn’t actually do. The law’s author failed to make it clear, probably because he was so blown away by Barnicle and Gandy’s shamelessness. Welcome to big-time politics, dude, where the truth is the first casualty.
The blog discussion of this law is at Blogatelle, Joanne Jacobs, Spleenville, and Daily Pundit. Not too many folks are getting it.
UPDATE: Meryl Yourish also commented on this law on her blog; she’s evidently upset on the encroachment on maternal sovereignty that has NOW excited.
You’re missing the point of this whole argument. It’s that this is a horrible violation of privacy for both the men and women involved. Imagine if you’d been named as one of the possible birth fathers and had your name plastered all over the newspaper even if you were married or had never even met the birth mother. There’s nothing stooping anyone from naming Jeb Bush or Janet Reno. It’s taking private business and making it public and it’s only going to discourage women from carrying pregnancies to term in the first place. The money would be better spent on a private investigator.
Laws against perjury, libel and defamation apply to this list, so I wouldn’t be too worried about stray names showing up.
When your private business results in the birth of a child, it’s no longer private; a third interest is then involved, and it has rights too.
Like I said, get the name and address of all the men you sleep with and it won’t be an issue for you.
But even those children are losing part of their privacy. Newspapers are part of the public record and are archived permanently, either on microfilm in libraries or on the Internet.
Secondly, for a lot of these women there might be circumstances where they might not be able to get the name and addresses of the people they sleep with, especially when there’s alcohol involved. Besides, how many one night stands are going to notify you when they move to another city?
I’m not saying that birth fathers shouldn’t be contacted, fathers have just a right to their offspring, but in this day and age there is a better way to get a hold of them. Not everyone reads the local paper everyday.
If there’s a better way to contact the father, then this law has no problem with using it. It’s only when all else fails that mom has to publish in the newspaper, just as legal notices of many other kinds are published in the paper. The value of this is that the man who knows he fathered a child but doesn’t know where the child is will read the paper looking for the notice.
I don’t see any adverse impact on the anonymous child, given the confidential nature of the actual adoption.
At the risk of reaching off-topic, I?m struck at how much rhetorical bending and twisting we are doing to maintain a sexual ?right to privacy? for heterosexuals (mostly). Not picking a fight, just heard some irony here.
The right to privacy provided the excuse for Roe v. Wade, so it’s natural for those who don’t have much use for children to apply it here as well.
[F]or a lot of these women there might be circumstances where they might not be able to get the name and addresses of the people they sleep with, especially when there’s alcohol involved. Besides, how many one night stands are going to notify you when they move to another city?
I’m not saying that birth fathers shouldn’t be contacted, fathers have just a right to their offspring, but in this day and age there is a better way to get a hold of them. Not everyone reads the local paper everyday.
Let me see if I’ve got this straight: A woman has slept with a man whose name, address, and even [current] city she doesn’t know, and yet there’s some better way “in this day and age” of getting in touch with him than printing a notice in the paper and hoping that at least he remembers her name? Name one. Seriously.
>[F]or a lot of these women there might be >circumstances where they might not be able to >get the name and addresses of the people they >sleep with, especially when there’s alcohol >involved. Besides, how many one night stands are >going to notify you when they move to another >city?
This comment was in response to Richard’s statement “Like I said, get the name and address of all the men you sleep with and it won’t be an issue for you.” Obviously if someone is going to have unprotected sex, then having a pen and paper handy probably isn’t going to spring to mind. That being said, perhaps a more active way of seeking fathers is necessary. With a last name and a few details you can locate someone using http://www.ussearch.com.
The mother is free to use any and all means to locate the father, and if she’s successful, there is no publication of her personal information in the papers.
The publication option is only used when all else fails. I don’t see why anybody in their right mind would see this as a problem.
When all else fails. It’s simple, it’s good, and it’s all-American.
Aren’t there cases where women don’t want to be found, such as domestic abuse between formerly cohabiting couples? The law still applies even if the woman has a good reason for not naming the father.
The value of this is that the man who knows he fathered a child but doesn’t know where the child is will read the paper looking for the notice.
If a man expects that he’s fathered a child, why doesn’t he take the responsibility himself to contact the mother? Doesn’t he have just as much responsibility to keep the name and address of people he’s slept with? The problem with this is that most men don’t expect that they’ve fathered a child.
Aren’t there cases where women don’t want to be found, such as domestic abuse between formerly cohabiting couples?
I don’t see that domestic abuse as a theoretical possibility is a justification for curtailing the parental rights of all fathers; we have laws that protect children from abusive parents, after all, and it’s hard to abuse a child that you’ve never seen.
If a man expects that he’s fathered a child, why doesn’t he take the responsibility himself to contact the mother?
That’s kind of hard to do if she’s deliberately hiding. The lawmakers who passed this law are acknowledging that the state will no longer aid in the kidnapping or concealment of children from their fathers, which strikes me as a progressive move.
I’m with Richard on this one. That newspaper ad is a last resort, and most of the women who claim not to know the father know perfectly well who it is.
She would only come to this pass if: a) she had sex with so many different men she couldn’t keep track of them all…[snip]I don’t think either if these scenarios shows the mother in a sympathetic light.
Oh, goody, now it’s OK to publicly shame women with adventurous sex lives. I mean, who cares? She’s just some slut, right?
Think of it as “cruising for sex” instead of “shaming” and you’ll have to admit it’s a really nice thing to do for women with adventurous sex lives.
What’s to be ashamed of, anyhow?