The Texas Response to Federal Privacy Jurisprudence

Abstract

In 2012 over ten million children in the United States were living without their fathers. In 2013 over 1.8 million of those children were in Texas, living in mother-only households. Children are being deprived of a needed parent. Has the United States Supreme Court’s endorsement of the philosophy of individualism in its privacy jurisprudence contributed to this rise in fatherless households? This article will discuss the effects of that jurisprudence on the State of Texas and how Texas has responded. Part I of this article discusses the Supreme Court’s privacy jurisprudence. That examination will reveal a shift from the Court’s protection of families to a jurisprudential assault on families through judicial endorsement of extreme individualism. Part II examines the origins, philosophy, and effects of this individualism, including marital and family breakdown and father absence, specifically considering statistical and demographic evidence from Texas. Part III explains Texas’s response to that jurisprudence and the State’s efforts to protect life and family relationships. While Texas’s public policy has been to strengthen families and promote fatherhood in the State, the High Court’s privacy jurisprudence has divided family unity in favor of individualism, which is having a profound effect on children. This article illustrates that Texas is making efforts to counteract those effects.