Home » About » Newsletters » December 2002
"ACLU Denounces Florida "Scarlet Letter" Law"
December 2002 Edition of the ACLU of Florida Newsletter
Under revised Florida adoption requirements enacted last year, mothers who want to give their children up for adoption must make an exhaustive effort to notify the birth father about adoption proceedings by taking out newspapers ads posting their sexual history.
The new adoption statute applies to birth mothers who are unaware of the identity or location of a birth father. In the newspaper notice, the mother must list her name, physically describe herself, name or describe the possible father(s) and list the date and the city or county of conception. The ad must run once a week for four weeks.
The ACLU of Florida, along with National ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project and the ACLU National Women's Rights Project, submitted a friend-of-the-court brief at the Fourth District Court of Appeals seeking to strike down these little-known changes in the adoption statute. "The law brands women with a scarlet letter and serves no purpose other than to publicly humiliate those women unlucky enough to be covered under the law," said Randall Marshall, ACLU of Florida Legal Director.
The legislature enacted the revision requiring the publication of specific personal information regarding potential fathers in order to terminate parental rights. The provision, however, forced many women to give highly personal, and highly intrusive, information about their sexual encounters that may have led to the pregnancy, even in rape cases.
In July, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Peter Blanc ruled the notification requirements were unconstitutional invasions of privacy. However, his ruling was limited to women who were sexually assaulted. In all other cases, women who can't locate or don't know the birth father must take out the newspaper notices. That includes underage girls who willingly had sexual relations but were not old enough to legally consent, Blanc ruled.
In its brief, the ACLU argues that the publication scheme is an unconstitutional invasion of the women's fundamental right to privacy under both Florida and federal law. A more effective means of protecting the rights of fathers, the ACLU suggests, would be to institute a confidential paternity registry that allows putative fathers to officially record their interest in their children without violating the privacy rights of mothers, children, or the men who may or may not be the father.
The case has been brought on behalf of four mothers who wish to place their children with private adoption agencies without publishing detailed private information about their sexual histories in order to do so.
The case is G.P., C.M., C.H., L.H. v. State of Florida, No. 4D02-3410. Lawyers for the ACLU brief include Mariann Meier Wang and Diana Kasdan of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project; Emily Martin of the ACLU Women's Rights Project; Randall C. Marshall of the ACLU of Florida; and New York attorneys Philip L. Graham Jr., James Andrew Kent, Michael A. Cheah, and Kathrine M. Mortensen.
