Ah, nothing like checking the news first thing in the morning and coming across this:

"Women who put babies up for adoption required to publish sexual pasts"

That’s right - in Florida, if a pregnant woman who plans to give her baby up for adoption can’t find the biological father to notify him (or, isn’t sure who the father is), then she has to put an ad in the newspaper with her name, a description of herself, the name or description of the possible father(s) and the date and location of conception.

Now. I am fully aware that men are often disadvantaged when it comes to having a say in the fate of the offspring they have sired. I understand that there have been cases in which a woman has put a child up for adoption only to have the biological father come a-knockin’ and try to get the kid back (or at least claim that he had been treated unjustly by not being given the opportunity to choose whether he wanted the kid for himself).

In many cases, it would indeed seem fair for the birth mother to let the biological father know what was going on. But for a woman to be forced to publicly announce who she’s slept with, when and where before she can give her child up for adoption (which I’m sure is difficult - if not traumatic - enough in itself) is cruel and degrading beyond words.

Of course I hear the argument already: if the woman hadn’t been so irresponsible as to get pregnant in the first place, she wouldn’t have to go through this. Well, you know, it does take two to tango. The potential fathers aren’t being forced to publish their sexual histories in the paper - and they shouldn’t be forced to. It’s a private matter. But the double standard is infuriating.

It’s just an unfortunate twist of nature, I suppose, that women are the ones forced to bear the physical burden (i.e., pregnancy) of an irresponsible sexual encounter (or simply of an accident such as a broken condom - not all unplanned pregnancies are the result of carelessness, after all).

And now, in addition to that physical burden and the psychological burden that undoubtedly goes along with it, women are faced with the added humiliation of having to make the most private part of their lives public knowledge. Women are being punished for wanting to do a responsible, courageous thing - that is, give their children up to someone who they feel could can care for them better.

Well, no, actually. Women aren’t being punished for giving their children up for adoption. It seems to me that women are essentially being punished for having had the insolence to have sex in the first place.

I guess not a whole lot has changed since Hawthorne’s day.

Further reading…