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Monday, December 1, 2014
Terminating Parental Rights of Rapists
My custody case in
Florida against my rapist started in 2010 and went on for a little over two
years. Though I had a restraining order
and had pursued prosecution, he was not convicted of rape. At the time he sued for custody, I did not
know how many states had no or limited legal protection at that time from a
rapist biological father when the child was conceived from his attack. Those
states which had laws required a rape conviction. For me, all that counted at the time was that
Florida had no legal protection at all for this. I recall the judge asking if there was any law
to prohibit this -- even a federal law --and me replying: "Not yet, but I am working on it."
I'm one of the
original co-founders of Hope After Rape Conception (HARC.) We came up with model legislation through HARC
with the "clear and convincing evidence" standard which the U.S.
Supreme Court has required for terminating parental rights. No
rape conviction should be necessary -- the same as other termination of parental
rights cases such as child abuse or neglect, where a criminal conviction is not
mandatory.
Having this model
legislation, I contacted a friend of mine I had known and whose opinion I have
valued since years ago when I was a law student at Florida State University
College of Law. Since he had also served
as a Florida legislative member in the past, I asked who he recommended contacting
about sponsoring our model legislation. It
was my hope that Florida could go from being one of the worst states for this
situation where there was no legal protection in place to being the best.
I followed through on
that recommendation, and contacted the member of the Florida House of
Representatives who was running for a seat in the Florida Senate. Since that was an election year and some
legislators were termed out from their service, we had to wait until after the
election for the proposed legislation to be moved forward, but the newly-elected
Senator Joseph Abruzzo followed through on his promise since he had also made
this issue part of his legislative platform. I continued to contact and share my story with
legislators on both sides of the aisle in order to gather support.
Legislative members in
the House and Senate were willing to get bipartisan support for the sake of the
people of Florida. Sen. Abruzzo found a
house sponsor, Representative Dave Kerner. I continued to work closely with Senator
Abruzzo's office on the drafting. One thing that was needed was a better
understanding of why the clear and convincing evidence standard should apply. So, I reached out to a trusted law professor
who had taught me years ago -- Professor Charles Ehrhardt at FSU. He was eager to help during the legislative
process and, since he literally wrote the Florida Evidence Code, was invaluable
in helping to explain to those involved why clear and convincing evidence was
the correct legal standard.
It became my personal
goal to get this law passed with unanimous bipartisan support because I wanted Florida
to set the example of turning things around for my daughter's sake, and for everyone
else who was in this situation of choosing life and raising a child conceived
in rape here in Florida -- so that they could be set free from the rapist. Sharing my personal story with the
legislature definitely made a difference -- especially because in Florida it is
the "best interest of the child" that is of primary importance. Here is some of what I shared with these state
leaders:
Years ago I was raped
and then learned that I had become pregnant as a result of his attack. I thought that I had fought him off
successfully despite the pain throughout every fiber of my body. I fought to make him stop. He would not. I was eventually rendered unconscious from his
attack. He even subsequently broke into
my home and pointed a gun at my pregnant belly threatening to kill “it” now or
later if I did not drop the prosecution against him.
More than half a
decade later, during which time there was no contact with my child by the man
who raped me -- which is how she was conceived, there he was in a Florida court
asking for visitation and all other parental rights to which he should have never
been entitled. I was horrified and
shocked. How could this now be possible
when it was not before? And how could
the laws of the state where he raped me and where she was born -- Louisiana,
which had kept us protected from this terror no longer seemed to matter? It was because we were now Florida residents. The State of Florida did not have any laws
that would protect my child from suddenly being forced into a relationship with
her biological father who raped me, and the State forced me to relive through
this court action the circumstances of her conception, which resulted from his
attack.
The absence of any
legal protection for us here in Florida allowed this traumatic nightmare to
happen. I felt the same horror of being
raped by him again, only this time it was through a Florida court where I had
it explained to me by those involved that he had "only" raped me and
not the child, and he is equal to every other father in Florida under the law
-- that he had equal rights to her just as any biological father in Florida
would and is therefore not deprived of his rights here since we reside in this
state. Even his past and future threats
of harm he made did not matter because the child had not yet been born when
that occurred, so therefore the child did not experience this directly since I
had been merely pregnant with her at the time that occurred. This was the logical explanation I was
repeatedly given as everything in my body and soul screamed, "Why is this
legal and how is this possibly in her 'best interest' ever?!"
I contacted grass
roots activists and key individuals who are in Tallahassee government
relations. I shared my story for the
legislative members and committees. I
kept saying we need unanimous bipartisan support and that I want Florida to go
from being a state with no protection to having the best. I was driven for my firstborn and by my love
for all my children. The biggest legislative
obstacle was a legislator who wanted a competing bill which would have had the
legislation only apply to future cases and, therefore, it wouldn't protect my
daughter. So I was certain to continue advocating and got others to help get
his alternate bill thrown out. I was
relentless, I persevered, and in the end, I got what I asking for: the law protecting me and my daughter -- and
all other Florida rape victim mothers and their children -- passed in 2013 with
unanimous bipartisan support and reflects our model legislation from HARC!
After the law was
passed in Florida in 2013, it became the state that not only had the model
legislation we were seeking nationally through Hope After Rape Conception, but
Florida is also where the first federal legislation on this issue originated: Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz
proposed the Rape Survivor Child Custody Act, echoing the Florida law, with the
clear and convincing evidence standard. And
just like at the state level, she immediately reached across party lines and
had a co-sponsor from the Republican side, U.S. Representative Marino. I was invited to participate in a press
conference at a rape crisis center to share my story and be a part of this
journey forward from the terror I had survived before. Video footage: http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/09/04/wasserman-schultz-urges-the-protection-of-rape-survivors-parental-rights/ Currently, the bill is not moving forward and
must be reintroduced during the next session of Congress.
Every pro-life organization needs to be
behind our model legislation, making it a legislative priority. Even though we had bi-partisan support, the
law is pro-life in effect. If pregnant
rape victims know that their State protects them from the rapist having
parental rights, they will be less likely to choose abortion. The FL House sponsor, Rep. Kerner, was quoted by
the press as saying that this new law can hopefully encourage those in this
same situation to choose life.
Furthermore, it's a prime opportunity for 100% pro-life legislators to
show how much concern they have for pregnant rape victims -- by protecting them
from the rapist.
BIO:
Analyn Megison is a graduate of Florida State
University College of Law. In her second year of law school,
she was a visiting student at Georgetown University Law Center and
interned with a federal judge in Washington, D.C..
She was appointed as the Special Assistant on Women's Policy for the
Office of the Governor of Louisiana, and she currently serves on a Domestic
and Sexual Violence Task Force in Florida. She's a pro-life speaker, co-founder of Hope After Rape Conception
and a blogger for Save The 1.
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1 comments:
Nice blog, it provides many informative and helpful articles. Thanks for sharing the information. Looking for more updates in future.
Family law attorney
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