Over the last few days I've seen a story pop up in my Facebook feed a few times about some proposed legislation in the Illinois House of Representatives. This proposed bill would prevent a birth certificate from being issued for children of single mothers, unless the mother provides the father's name on the certificate. While this may not seem like a big deal - why doesn't she just name him? - it could, in fact, have dire, even dangerous consequences.
While this may be intended to punish "immoral" mothers and deadbeat fathers, it has the potentially dangerous side effect of punishing the child most harshly of all.
Without the assistance of public aid, the child of an impoverished single mother will now most likely be denied basics like clothing, books, and even food. This is not for lack of trying on the part of the mother, but rather is due to a combination of the abysmal minimum wage, which is not enough to support one person, let alone a family, and the rising cost of living - a cheap, small-town, one-bedroom apartment now costs about 75% of the average full-time minimum-wage paycheck, and is up to three times higher in bigger cities, leaving almost nothing for utilities, food, emergencies, and other necessary expenses. Additionally, many minimum-wage employers now only offer part-time work, to escape having to offer employee benefits, forcing these mothers to take on two, even three jobs in order to make ends meet, denying them much-needed quality time with their child and adding expensive child-care costs to their already paper-thin budget.
While the mother would, theoretically, still be able to apply for her own aid, she would, for all legal intents and purposes, be a single, unmarried woman, with no children, working full time at minimum wage, and would therefore be granted only the most minimal of assistance - a little over a hundred dollars in food stamps, perhaps, and state medical insurance (for herself, not her child). She wouldn't even be able to claim the child as a dependent on her tax forms, which could have provided necessary additional income supplementation.
But that's not even the worst part.
Early last year, attention was drawn to the case of a Texas girl named Alecia Pennington who, upon fleeing her ultra-conservative homeschool family, found that not only did she not have access to her identifying documents - they never existed in the first place. At the time, a number of homeschool students began coming forward with similar stories of withheld or nonexistent identity documentation, and a new form of abuse was coined: Identification Abuse.
Identification Abuse is when a child is denied his or her identifying documents for the purpose of punishment or control. Sound familiar?
Without a birth certificate, the child can't enroll in school, apply for a driver's license, get a job, vote, open a bank account, get married, acquire a passport, or receive any aid of their own. In fact, it can go so far as to raise questions about the child's citizenship, which can result in consequences as dire as wrongful deportation.
Following the Pennington case, the state of Texas approved a bill to make it a criminal offense for parents to refuse their child their identity.
Now, Illinois is proposing to institutionalize this kind of abuse, by refusing to issue the birth certificates in the first place. This sets a dangerous precedent for states still struggling with how to handle cases of identification abuse, and creates a potentially harmful environment for future children born under this legislation.
I think what the state is forgetting here is that it's not about the money - it's about the child. The well-being of that child is more important than anything, and this kind of legislature puts that well-being dangerously at risk, either from abusive fathers brought unnecessarily into the picture, or from the mere reality of an impoverished childhood.
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If this angers you as much as it does me, I implore you to contact your local representative and tell them how you feel.
The bill, proposed by Reps. John Cavaletto and Kieth R. Wheeler earlier this month, would be an amendment to the Vital Records Act, and would deny public aid to any mother who does not have a birth certificate for her child. It removes the provision stating that the father must sign an acknowledgement of parentage, instead enforcing a required parentage. In this way, it would prevent deadbeat fathers from denying their children in order to get out of paying child support. The perhaps-unintended effect, however, is to brutally punish single mothers who are unable or unwilling to provide paternity for their child.
While in many cases, it would be easy just to name a father and go on your merry way, there are a number of cases in which this might not be possible, or could prove dangerous to the health and safety of either the mother or the child. With no provisions made, what happens in cases of rape, where the father might be unknown or the mother may not want any contact with the father? What about abusive relationships, in which the mother flees her abuser only to discover she's carrying his child? With the man listed as "father" on the birth certificate, he would be entitled to all parental rights associated with the title, until he chooses to waive them, or custody can be settled in court. Additionally, with the intention of the bill being to force these fathers to pay child support, it could only be assumed the state would contact them to inform them of their paternal duties, providing potentially dangerous information to former abusers.
Of course, in cases where a father cannot, or will not, be named, the mother can either submit her child to DNA testing to determine paternity, or can present a family member who agrees to take financial responsibility for the child. The text in question is as follows:
"If an unmarried mother cannot or refuses to name the child's father at the time of birth, either: a) a father must be conclusively established by DNA evidence; or b) within 30 days after birth, another family member who will financially provide for the child must be named, in court, or on the birth certificate.
If neither condition is met, a birth certificate shall not be issued for the child and the mother will be ineligible for any financial aid provided under the Illinois Public Aid Code for the support of the child."This fails to consider, however, that mothers who would fall under this legislation are often the ones most in need of aid, and would now be the only ones unable to receive it. It strictly targets poor families where it would be dangerous or impossible to name a father - thus child support is out of the question - and family members would be unable to provide financial support in his place.
While this may be intended to punish "immoral" mothers and deadbeat fathers, it has the potentially dangerous side effect of punishing the child most harshly of all.
Without the assistance of public aid, the child of an impoverished single mother will now most likely be denied basics like clothing, books, and even food. This is not for lack of trying on the part of the mother, but rather is due to a combination of the abysmal minimum wage, which is not enough to support one person, let alone a family, and the rising cost of living - a cheap, small-town, one-bedroom apartment now costs about 75% of the average full-time minimum-wage paycheck, and is up to three times higher in bigger cities, leaving almost nothing for utilities, food, emergencies, and other necessary expenses. Additionally, many minimum-wage employers now only offer part-time work, to escape having to offer employee benefits, forcing these mothers to take on two, even three jobs in order to make ends meet, denying them much-needed quality time with their child and adding expensive child-care costs to their already paper-thin budget.
While the mother would, theoretically, still be able to apply for her own aid, she would, for all legal intents and purposes, be a single, unmarried woman, with no children, working full time at minimum wage, and would therefore be granted only the most minimal of assistance - a little over a hundred dollars in food stamps, perhaps, and state medical insurance (for herself, not her child). She wouldn't even be able to claim the child as a dependent on her tax forms, which could have provided necessary additional income supplementation.
But that's not even the worst part.
Early last year, attention was drawn to the case of a Texas girl named Alecia Pennington who, upon fleeing her ultra-conservative homeschool family, found that not only did she not have access to her identifying documents - they never existed in the first place. At the time, a number of homeschool students began coming forward with similar stories of withheld or nonexistent identity documentation, and a new form of abuse was coined: Identification Abuse.
Identification Abuse is when a child is denied his or her identifying documents for the purpose of punishment or control. Sound familiar?
Without a birth certificate, the child can't enroll in school, apply for a driver's license, get a job, vote, open a bank account, get married, acquire a passport, or receive any aid of their own. In fact, it can go so far as to raise questions about the child's citizenship, which can result in consequences as dire as wrongful deportation.
Following the Pennington case, the state of Texas approved a bill to make it a criminal offense for parents to refuse their child their identity.
Now, Illinois is proposing to institutionalize this kind of abuse, by refusing to issue the birth certificates in the first place. This sets a dangerous precedent for states still struggling with how to handle cases of identification abuse, and creates a potentially harmful environment for future children born under this legislation.
I think what the state is forgetting here is that it's not about the money - it's about the child. The well-being of that child is more important than anything, and this kind of legislature puts that well-being dangerously at risk, either from abusive fathers brought unnecessarily into the picture, or from the mere reality of an impoverished childhood.
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If this angers you as much as it does me, I implore you to contact your local representative and tell them how you feel.
