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A
new Florida statute requires that mothers who seek to put their
children up for adoption must first make a substantial effort to
notify their children's fathers. To those who believe that fathers
should have the right to be an integral part of their children's
lives, this is a reasonable law. Yet to the National Organization
for Women it is an "outrage." And to Jeanne Tate, executive vice
president of the Florida Association of Adoption Professionals,
the statute's requirements are "horrible," "degrading," and "reminiscent
of The Scarlet Letter."
What
is truly an outrage is NOW's and the FAAP's lack of consideration
for fathers and children. Agonizing and emotional custody battles
between biological and adoptive parents--like those in the well-publicized
Baby Richard and Baby Jessica cases--demonstrate the need for an
effective notification system which can prevent children from being
adopted against their biological fathers' wishes.
Although
previous laws required birth mothers to place notices in local newspapers
concerning pending adoptions, the new statute, enacted last year,
requires that these notices be more detailed and comprehensive.
Now a mother who is seeking to put her child up for adoption and
who is not in contact with the child's father must, as a last resort,
attempt to notify the father by placing a notice in an appropriate
newspaper. The notice must contain the age, race, hair and eye color,
and approximate height and weight of the child's mother and also
of "any person the mother reasonably believes may be the father."
NOW,
the FAAP, and other opponents of the new statute argue that its
notification requirements can be humiliating for women who have
had multiple sex partners and who are unsure of the identity of
the father. While this is a legitimate complaint, it is unreasonable
to suggest that a birth mother's embarrassment is more important
than a father's right to raise his child.
In
addition, depriving a child of knowledge of his parentage can have
damaging medical and emotional implications. For example, for children
facing life-threatening illnesses such as cancers requiring bone-marrow
transplants or other medical emergencies, knowing their biological
heritage can be a matter of life or death. Also, many adopted children,
no matter how much they may love their adoptive parents, will one
day want to seek out their biological parents.
The
statute's opponents also argue that a woman who has been raped should
not have to give notification that she is giving the child up for
adoption. This is a valid concern but one which has already been
addressed by the Palm Beach County circuit court. In May,
the court issued a ruling which declared that the statute's notification
requirements are an unconstitutional invasion of privacy for women
who became pregnant as a result of sexual assault.
The
underlying assumption made by the opponents of the notification
statute is that men do not want their children. While some parents
(both male and female) are irresponsible, often the problem in adoptions
is not that unwed biological fathers do not care about their children,
but that they do not know of their existence.
In
fact, many unwed fathers struggle desperately to remain a part of
their children's lives. They are often thwarted by mothers who find
them inconvenient, and family court systems and policies which do
little to enforce their right to be a meaningful part of their children's
lives.
Detailed
notices in newspapers are a reasonable (although imperfect) solution
to the father notification problem. A better alternative is
for the state to allow women to use its Parent Locator System--the
system used to track down parents who owe child support. State systems
are tied into the Federal Parent Locator System, and they are often
remarkably effective at finding parents where other agencies fail.
The
locator system would help women find their children's fathers and
thus reduce the need for the public notices in newspapers. Since
this system is routinely used to track down fathers who owe child
support, why can't it be used to unite fathers and their children?
This column first appeared in the
Washington Times (8/22/02)
Glenn Sacks writes about gender issues from the male perspective.
He can be reached at Glenn@GlennSacks.com.
Dianna Thompson is a founder and executive director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children (www.acfc.org).
She can be contacted by e-mail at
DThompson2232@aol.com.
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