and ain't i a woman?: Scarlet classifieds
In late August, a classified ad was printed in the Florida-based Tallahassee Democrat. After listing the name of the author, along with her age, height, hair and eye colour, weight and race, it explained that she had had sex, at a specified location, with a stranger whose name she didn't know in September 2001. She explained that after becoming pregnant from that encounter, she wanted to put the baby up for adoption. If the father wanted to stop her, now was the time to come forward.
This was just one of hundreds of such bizarre ads that have been printed in Florida newspapers since October, when Florida changed its adoption law. The new law was a response to the case of "baby Emily", who was embroiled in a three-year custody battle after her biological father, a convicted rapist, challenged her adoption, which had happened without his consent.
The Florida law is breathtakingly sexist and punitive. If a woman wants to put her baby up for adoption, and the biological father's whereabouts is unknown, she must take out a classified ad for four successive weeks in the local newspaper of each city in which the baby's conception might have occurred.
In addition to all the personal information listed by the Tallahassee woman, the ad must detail the baby's name, date and place of birth, as well as known details, including names, of all the men that the woman had sex with around the time of the baby's conception.
@COLUMN SPACE = In July, six women filed to have the law overturned, claiming that it violated their constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy. Two of these women had become pregnant as a result of rape. To comply with the law, they would have to advertise the incident to the general public.
@COLUMN SPACE = On August 27, the judge hearing the case ruled that the law did not apply in cases of "forced sexual battery" or "forced rape". However, he dismissed the other four women's cases.
@COLUMN SPACE = One of these women was 12 years' old at the time she became pregnant. Although her child's biological father had committed statutory rape, because she had consented the judge considered the man retained his parental rights. Two of the other women were substance abusers who had become pregnant to their dealers. The fourth is a teenager, whose several sexual partners are also classmates.
All of these women, like hundreds of others, are afraid of the impact that revealing their sexual history in a newspaper could have on their lives. All four women are appealing the decision. Feminist lobbyists are also hopeful of having the law overturned when the state legislature meets again in March.
The law has been welcomed by "fathers' rights" groups. When asked if he was concerned that women could be humiliated by the advertisements, fathers' rights attorney Jeffrey Leving told reporters: "That's something they need to think about before they engage in recreational sex and sex with multiple partners."
Of course, one might make the same point about "caring" dads who believe that a casual sexual encounter gives them the right to stop a woman from making decisions about her fertility and her life.
The Florida law is the most extreme case of the general drift in the US towards giving biological fathers legal control over their female partners' parental choices.
In a growing number of states, although not in Florida, a man can petition to stop his female partner having an abortion. In almost every state, women are now required to attempt to locate the biological father of a child before putting such a child up for adoption. If an adoption is stopped, the woman's legal parental obligations remain.
These laws take privacy and control of their fertility and life choices away from many women, in order to give "parental rights" to men totally uninvolved in the process of giving birth. It will be an outrage if the Florida law is not overturned by the state legislature.
BY ALISON DELLIT
[The author is a member of the Democratic Socialist Party.]
From Green Left Weekly, October 2, 2002.
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