Posted on 09/20/2002 12:53:11 PM PDT by ZGuy
Do you want to adopt a child? Thousands of couples want to, and thousands have been waiting, hoping, for years. Now Florida legislators have passed a law they say will make adoptions more "secure." Sounds good, but lawmakers have shown us time and again that their pursuit of perfection often makes things worse.
Critics say this new law will likely lead to FEWER adoptions, more abortions, and to children being raised by parents who admit they're not ready for parenthood. Take the case of Melissa Colleran. Colleran is an unemployed 18-year-old who's barely able to pay the rent on her Tampa home. She said she doesn't think she's "emotionally or financially ready to take care of a child." Unfortunately, she's seven months pregnant.
Colleran said she doesn't know who the father is, only that he was a stranger she met in a bar. "It was a one-night stand, something that just happened, maybe it shouldn't have happened, but it happened," Colleran said.
She decided she wanted to put the baby up for adoption, but the new law makes that harder. Florida legislators decreed that before an adoption can take place, birth mothers who don't know who or where the biological father is must advertise in newspapers to try to find him. Colleran would have to list the name of every possible father, and her name.
Colleran said she'd have to disclose "basically everything about my sexual history, within the time that I conceived. And I think this is disgusting, it makes me feel very ashamed."
So, Colleran has decided not to place one of the ads. "It is something that should be between me and the person I shared it with, not me, the person I shared it with, the guy down the block, and the guy who is reading the newspaper across from me on a bus," Colleran said.
More Shame, Fewer Adoptions?
Colleran says she plans to keep her baby and try to raise him as a single mom. "I was going to place the baby for adoption, and when I heard about this law, just thinking about people seeing my name and all these things in the paper, I decided not to," she said.
Other women are opting to have abortions.
"How far do we have to go to find the birth father that's a one-night stand in a bar?" asked adoption lawyer Jeanne Tate.
Tate says Florida's new law means fewer children are being adopted. "I see it in my practice. I see girls who are choosing abortion over adoption," she said.
So why require these ads? Because of horror stories like that of "Baby Jessica." She was the little girl taken from the only home she'd known when her biological father suddenly appeared saying, he hadn't know he had a child and that no one had tried to find him.
But will ads help? They may satisfy the state's requirements, but lawyers who talked to ABCNEWS didn't know of any father who'd responded to one. The ads sure do humiliate mothers, and they seem to make it harder for women who want give up their children.
"This isn't making it harder. This is making it final and secure," according to Deborah Marks, who helped write Florida's new law. Marks said the law would prevent biological fathers from disrupting adoptions.
Marks acknowledged that this doesn't happen often. She said she didn't have a statistic on how many fathers had disrupted adoptions, "but it happens sometimes."
Do we need a humiliating law because of something that rarely occurs? Marks thinks we do. "If we could stop even one of those cases from happening by doing some due process up front, it would be a benefit," she said.
The law doesn't apply only to young women like Melissa Colleran. It also applies to underage girls and to women who have been raped.
"There is no exception for rape. … You cannot just allow someone to say they were raped and use that as an excuse not to provide a name," Marks said.
Marks said she doesn't think lawyers can solve every problem by passing more laws. According to Marks, "It was already the law that you had to find birth fathers. … What this law did was lay out specifics of what people had to do."
Great. Humiliating specifics that discourage adoption, encourage abortion, and lead women like Melissa Colleran to keep babies they fear they're not prepared to care for.
Give me a break!
Slut.
You are being an ass.
What a crock. Liberal men are just as stupid, and there are just as many of them.
And while women "fix the problems with their gender peers", who will be lecturing their fellow men to keep their pants zipped, hmmmmmmm?
The following formula applies equally to men and women:
1 sexual encounter=1 chance to make a baby
2 sexual encounters=2 chances to make a baby
Get it?
Men just need to stop breeding with Liberal Women. That would solve the problem in a hurry.
Women are the problem. Period.
If only men voted in 1992 and 1996, clinton would have been defeated.
If only men have voted in 2000, there would have been no need for a recount. Bush owuld have won in a landslide. Also the victories of Jean Carnahan, Debbie "Stalin" Stabenow, Maria Cantwell and others simply would not have occured without the vote of abortion-obsessed American women.
If you are pissed, don't be pissed at me...get your own female house in order...men are doing their job.
Bigoted? You must be joking.
There are simply not enough "conservative" women to make a difference. With men alone voting, Clinton would never have been president, Bush would have won in a landslide and the Congress would be overwhelmingly GOP. Hillary Clinton would be languishing in obscurity. Period. You cannot dispute this.
Hatemongering? You sound like a liberal. Abortion-worshipping women of both parties are sabotaging the future of this nation. If you don't like it...WORK TO FIX IT. But don't blame the messenger. Men are doing their job, obviously, women must get their "sisters" in line.
As well she should...
Yes, but only one can get pregnant. If this loose woman can't keep her legs closed she shouldn't complain when their are consequences.
As well you should.
Women bear men's children. Men do not bear women's children.
In order for children to have fathers, women must be chaste. The "double standard" is essential to civilization.
Yeah, they're doing a fine job of getting all these women pregnant.
What, are they RAPING these women? The women aren't allowing themselves to become pregnant? How horrible! Call the police!
Women are the gatekeepers. If they don't want these skeeby men to impregnante them, they can close their legs, get some self-respect, and no problem.
What, are the women RAPING these men? The men aren't allowing themselves to impregnate these women? How horrible! Call the police!
Men AND women are the gatekeepers. If they don't want to get slapped with paternity suits and child support orders or a shotgun wedding to a woman they can't stand, they can keep their pants zipped, get some self-respect, and no problem.
Don't you see that the responsibility for the begetting of children lies with women AND men equally? Women don't get pregnant by themselves. Men are just as capable of self-control as women, and men are just as capable of promiscuity as women. Neither sex was designed to pull all the weight themselves. So if you're so G.D. eager to preach to women, I expect you to be just as eager to preach to men.
I can only hope that no woman is unlucky enough to have to live with you.
You hate them enough to be gay.
DO NOT TAP ON GLASS
You're doing a fine job there, wimpy - but then, you're not a self-loathing doormat.
Yep, they sure are getting a bunch of women pregnant out of wedlock.
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