A ‘Scarlet Letter’ Law Fla. Adoption Statute Pits Fathers’ Rights Against Women’s Privacy

20/20 ^ | 9/20/2002 | John Stossel

[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!

[Heyworth]

The problems with America are mainly caused by JEWS. Clinton would never have been president and the Senate would be 55-45 GOP if JEWS could not vote. Conservative JEWS need to fix the problems with their JEWISH peers. They are destroying the moral fabric of this country.

The problems with America are mainly caused by BLACKS. Clinton would never have been president and the Senate would be 55-45 GOP if BLACKS could not vote. Conservative BLACKS need to fix the problems with their BLACK peers. They are destroying the moral fabric of this country.

Go on, fill in your own minority! It's fun and easy! Of course, it marginalizes your entire political outlook into the sort of kookdom that everyone will leap at the chance to disavow.

[rintense]

This is beyond the Yates. This is Twlight Zone stuff.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

I'm not sure that Serling could have come up with anything weird like this. Doing dishes after feeding my family tonight, I thought about the number of posters who would force all women to homemaking, whether they wanted it or not.

[rintense]

I thank God everyday he gave me a brain and a mouth- and the intelligence to use them both.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

You go, sister of mine.

[Brytani]

I fully agree men should be informed they are going to be fathers. However, the way Florida is going about notifying fathers is wrong.

First, any woman putting a child up for adoption (outside of cases of rape) should be forced, under penalty of law for perjury, to name whom she believes the father and then contact this person/people.

In cases where the woman does not know who the father is (yes, this is a slut, outside of rape, regardless of how anyone tries to justify it) an ad should be run in the paper BUT without names. An ad such as "At such and such date, at so and so bar, one night stand with a man wearing these clothes etc, resulted in a pregnancy" then give the "father" a certain amount of time to come forward. No reason to name names to do this.

In cases where the woman does know whom the father is, it should be her responsibility to inform him or the pregnancy and then the state should have him either petition for full parental rights or to sign off acknowledgment of the adoption.

That is fair to all, protect the identity of the people involved and allow children to be adopted.

[RogerFGay]

I've seen the article lots of times, and several others on the same topic. I'm not sure that everyone who is interested in this sort of things goes to www.mensnewsdaily.com .... if they did, they'd be up on the latest news.

We live in a strange era when people are not concerned when women act as independent breeders and sometimes want to dump children out the window. Sorry, this isn't what I want right now. Please don't bother me about the details, like the father or anything. Women are going to be complaining that somebody's trying to make giving up someone else's child (the father is a parent too), more complicated and personal than selling your own used car.

[Lorianne]

Precisely. "Conservatives" have a lot of baggage to unload if they every hope to reach the millions of women who are moderate-conservative, particularly on social issues such as abortion. If some of them alienate and frighten blacks and women who are fence sitters (the gigantic middlel spectram of voters), guess where they'll go?

[I CAN BE FRANK]

How I wish that I could be humble again!

If I could,

I SURE WOULD.

[Lorianne]

We live in a strange era when people are not concerned when women act as independent breeders...

Women are never independent breeders. Parthenogenesis is not biologically possible in humans. The real concern I have is with people delude themselves and try to delude others that it is.

[AAABEST]

I'm with grlfrnd. We keep talking about all of these rights. The right to an abortion, the right to privacy, the right to banish the father from the child yet still collect child support.

IMO she has the right to keep her legs closed. If not she has the right to have the foggiest idea of who the hell she was mating (like a stray dog) with.

If she's shamed, tough shit.

[Tired of Taxes]

IMO she has the right to keep her legs closed. If not she has the right to have the foggiest idea of who the hell she was mating (like a stray dog) with.

And he has the right to keep his pants zipped. If he wants to keep track of his offspring, maybe he should make sure he has the name and address of the woman he picked up at a bar. That personal accountability stuff works both ways. ;-)

[AAABEST]

Actually I can't argue with any of your points. I wouldn't want to as you're right on target.

Indiscriminate mating is certainly a two way street.

[Z in Oregon]

"Conservatives" have a lot of baggage to unload if they every hope to reach the millions of women who are moderate-conservative, particularly on social issues such as abortion.

Wrong again, homegirl.

The Republican Party needs to work harder to draw men and needs to cater to male voters.

That's the answer.

Republican politicians need to be asking themselves, "What do men want???"

[Z in Oregon]

Parthenogenesis is not biologically possible in humans.

Tell that to your ideological soulmates at NOW.

[Z in Oregon]

And what values have you sold out in order to?

[IronJack]

If some of them alienate and frighten blacks and women who are fence sitters (the gigantic middlel spectram of voters), guess where they'll go?

And if conservatives have to trade their soul for those votes, guess what they'll become.

If the price I have to pay to get a "fence sitter's" vote is the life of an unborn child (and millions like it), then I'll live without that vote.

[Stand Watch Listen]

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