Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) wrote in his 1995 book Profiles in Character that public shaming would be an effective way to curb the “irresponsible behavior” of unwed mothers, teens who misbehaved and welfare recipients.
According to the Huffington Post, in a chapter called “The Restoration of Shame,” the likely 2016 presidential candidate made the case that restoring the art of public humiliation could help prevent pregnancies “out of wedlock.”
One of the reasons more young women are giving birth out of wedlock and more young men are walking away from their paternal obligations is that there is no longer a stigma attached to this behavior, no reason to feel shame. Many of these young women and young men look around and see their friends engaged in the same irresponsible conduct. Their parents and neighbors have become ineffective at attaching some sense of ridicule to this behavior. There was a time when neighbors and communities would frown on out of wedlock births and when public condemnation was enough of a stimulus for one to be careful.
Bush was able to test his public shaming theory when as governor of Florida in 2001, he declined to veto a very controversial bill that required single mothers who did not know the identity of the father to publish their sexual histories in a newspaper before they could legally put their babies up for adoption. In 2003, he signed a repeal of the so-called “Scarlet Letter” law after it was successfully challenged in court, the Huffington Post writes.
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