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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Some birth mothers in Florida must publish their sexual histories in local newspapers if they wish to place their child for private adoption.
Aug 21, 2002 | The newspaper ad identifies the mother by name. It says that she has blond hair and blue eyes, weighs 140 pounds and is 5 feet 6 inches tall. Her baby, the ad says, was conceived sometime in September 2001 and the father is unknown, but the mother did have sex that month with an unknown man in Tallahassee, Fla. If that man wants to claim the child, now is the time to step forward.
The ad, which appeared in the Tallahassee Democrat, is one of hundreds of similar notices that have appeared in Florida newspapers since last October, when state legislators passed a new statute governing adoption. The humiliating personal snapshots of one-night stands and regrettable sexual escapades are now required by law when a woman who wants to give up a child for private adoption does not have paternal consent or doesn't know who the father is. The state requires that the ads be published in local papers in an attempt to notify fathers of impending adoptions, giving them a chance to claim their children.
State Sen. Walter "Skip" Campbell, D-Tamarac, who sponsored the bill, claimed at the time of its introduction that the measure solidified the state's constitutional obligation to biological fathers. "In 1972 the Supreme Court of the U.S. revolutionized the area of adoption law by saying that biological fathers have due-process rights so that they can have an opportunity to parent," he said, citing the ruling in Stanley vs. Illinois that gave an unwed man rights to his biological children after their mother's death.
But since its passage, the Florida law has managed to infuriate and alienate a wide and unlikely collection of state and national critics -- including some fathers' groups. Florida adoption professionals are alarmed by both the financial burden and public shame that their clients are forced to bear under the new rule. Antiabortion advocates -- even the Rev. Jerry Falwell -- worry that the law is steering women with unwanted pregnancies toward abortion rather than adoption. And the ACLU and NOW call the measure sexist, unconstitutional and a violation of privacy rights.
Representing six clients, including a 12-year-old rape victim, adoption lawyer Charlotte Danciu has challenged the law in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. Circuit Judge Peter Blanc declared the notification requirement unconstitutional in cases of rape, which was a victory for Danciu's 12-year-old client. But Blanc upheld other provisions of the law, including the notification requirement for underage girls who willingly had sex; Danciu plans to appeal.
Meanwhile, local publicity about the case has triggered a furious debate: How do adoption officials, public or private, make sure that a biological parent has an opportunity to claim a child, without violating the privacy of either parent, or, for that matter, the child?
With between 5,000 to 7,000 annually, Florida has the second-highest number of adoptions in America, just behind California. Adoption professionals attribute these numbers, at least in part, to laws that make it relatively easy to adopt both privately and from the state. This was the case, at least, until last October, when the Florida Legislature overhauled its adoption statute to improve paternal rights.
Federal law requires that before a mother can give a child up for private or public adoption without the father's permission, she must prove that she or her lawyer has performed an exhaustive search to locate the child's father. The requirement is designed to prevent situations in which the father demands custody after learning about the existence of the child much later in the child's life. In the last decade, such situations have resulted in high-profile lawsuits, and men's rights groups have made the issue a priority. For that reason, social workers, adoption professionals, men's groups and legislators in Florida wanted to clarify the process.
For most the 1990s, Florida adoption professionals proposed to solve the problem with a statewide paternity registry that would allow men to register their claims on any child that might be theirs. The registry was supposed to prevent pregnant women from giving away a child without the father's knowledge. Authorities would check the registry before going through with adoption, looking for a potential biological father with an interest in the baby. More than a decade ago, as Florida considered creating a registry, the concept was new and only a few states had them. Today, nearly half the states in the country have registries.
