Fla. Stat. § 63.053

This is the official text of Fla. Stat. § 63.053, part of Florida’s Stat — part of the compiled statutory law of Florida, published by the state as "Stat." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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63.053 Rights and responsibilities of an unmarried biological father; legislative findings.

Official statutory text

(1) In enacting the provisions contained in this chapter, the Legislature prescribes the conditions for determining whether an unmarried biological father’s actions are sufficiently prompt and substantial so as to require protection of a constitutional right. If an unmarried biological father fails to take the actions that are available to him to establish a relationship with his child, his parental interest may be lost entirely, or greatly diminished, by his failure to timely comply with the available legal steps to substantiate a parental interest.

(2) The Legislature finds that the interests of the state, the mother, the child, and the adoptive parents described in this chapter outweigh the interest of an unmarried biological father who does not take action in a timely manner to establish and demonstrate a relationship with his child in accordance with the requirements of this chapter. An unmarried biological father has the primary responsibility to protect his rights and is presumed to know that his child may be adopted without his consent unless he strictly complies with this chapter and demonstrates a prompt and full commitment to his parental responsibilities.

(3) The Legislature finds that a birth mother and a birth father have a right of privacy.

History: s. 10, ch. 2003-58; s. 9, ch. 2012-81.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.