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Our Address:
12200 Fairhill Road, Floor A3
Fairhill Partners Collaborative Campus
Cleveland, OH 44120
Phone (216) 325-1000
Contact
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Advocacy | Public Policy Initiatives and Alerts

Current Initiatives

Adoption Network Cleveland: The Ohio Family Connection is active on a range of legislative issues at the state level in Columbus. Sometimes we initiate legislation, other times we take a stand on existing initiatives or participate in coalitions. Our Public Policy Committee is composed of board and community members. In addition to our direct efforts, we release a Public Policy Agenda on a two-year cycle coinciding with Ohio’s biennial legislative sessions and organize an annual Lobby Day where our members deliver materials and have a discussion with every legislative office in the Ohio House and Senate.

To join the committee or get more information, contact Betsie Norris at betsie.norris@adoptionnetwork.org or (216) 482-2314.

 

2024-2025 Public Policy Agenda 

Adoption Network Cleveland (ANC) envisions an adoption, foster care, and child welfare system in which all parties experience the best possible outcomes. During the 136th General Assembly, ANC will mainly focus its efforts on: (2025-2026 Public Policy Agenda)

Sibling Connections
Research demonstrates that maintaining sibling relationships can provide positive support and improved outcomes for children involved in the child welfare system. Siblings should be available to children and youth as a source of comfort and stability as their living environments and caregiving relationships change. Therefore:

  • Children in foster care should be placed with their siblings unless it is determined not to be in their best interest.
  • In cases where siblings are separated: The appropriateness of continued separation should be considered and re-addressed frequently; at a minimum, during each case review; and diligent efforts should be made to maintain significant contact between siblings unless it is documented as not being in their best interest.
  • If appropriate, siblings should be included in permanency planning discussions, and contact with siblings should be encouraged in any adoptive or guardianship placement.

Child Welfare Funding
As human services budgets continue to be strained, ANC remains committed to identifying and supporting creative ways to protect and grow services and supports for adoptive and foster families, kinship caregivers, and youth. Therefore our agenda includes items such as:

  • Financial and other supports for youth in foster care to engage in higher education including college
  • Strong caregiving supports to adoptive, foster and kinship families including accessible and affordable childcare.

Ethical and Equitable Practices
ANC promotes respectful, nondiscriminatory policies that balance the rights of all parties involved in the conception, birth and caregiving of a child, while maintaining a focus on the best interests of that child, into their adulthood. Personal growth and adjustment are enhanced where ongoing, cooperative and trusting relationships are developed for all parties in adoption, kinship, assisted reproduction including donor conception, and child welfare situations. Further, ANC believes all adults have an inherent right to access records of which they are the subject, regardless of whether they have been impacted by foster care, adoption, donor conception and/or misattributed parentage. Therefore our agenda includes items such as:

  • Ethical and equitable practices in the facilitation of adoption processes including adoption advertising
  • Accuracy and transparency and in all legal records regarding child’s conception, birth and caregiving arrangement

About Adoption Network Cleveland
Adoption Network Cleveland recognizes adoption as a complex, lifelong and intergenerational journey for all those whose lives are touched by it. Founded in 1988, Adoption Network Cleveland provides programs and services to connect and empower all people impacted by adoption, foster care, donor conception and/or misattributed parentage and all related professionals.

Past Initiatives

Previous legislative initiatives of Adoption Network Cleveland: The Ohio Family connection, are detailed below in our biennial public policy agenda that is updated and published at the beginning of each Ohio Statehouse assembly.

Advocacy Alerts

ADVOCACY ALERT: Fraudulent Assisted Reproduction / Fertility Fraud
Provisions to Establish Fraudulent Assisted Reproduction as a Crime Added to Ohio Criminal Law Reform Bill

Press Release: November 28, 2022

Columbus, OH – Fertility fraud involves the misuse of genetic material to create a viable embryo. The classic example is a fertility doctor who uses his own sperm to fertilize the egg of one of his patients, despite the patient having only consented to use the sperm of another donor. Current Ohio law does not prohibit a doctor from using his own sperm to impregnate a patient, or other misrepresentations about the donor, and provides no legal recourse for women and their children who find out years later. 

While currently fertility fraud is not a crime, it is a profound ethical and moral issue and an unconscionable abuse of trust between doctors and patients. States including Indiana, Kentucky, Florida, Texas, and Colorado have recently passed legislation to address this gap in the law, and there are laws pending in additional states including Michigan and Iowa.

As direct-to-consumer DNA testing becomes more and more popular, more people will discover that they and their parents or siblings have been affected by fertility fraud. With the advent of 23 and Me and other similar companies, this phenomenon has only recently come to light, so corrective legislative action is both timely and appropriate.

House Bill 64 was introduced in early 2021 to address this issue. The bill passed the House Criminal Justice Committee unanimously in April 2022 and its provisions have now been added to Substitute Senate Bill 288, a criminal law reform bill.

Adoption Network Cleveland is taking a central role in organizing advocates in Ohio on this issue including working with the U.S. Donor Conceived Council. Although fertility fraud may seem unrelated to adoption, in reality, adoptees share many of the same issues as victims of fertility fraud and donor-conceived individuals. Those overlapping policy considerations converge where issues of genetic identity, medical history, and openness are central.

In addition to Ohio advocates anticipated to testify at the hearing we expect to be joined by advocates from Indiana, including some who are featured in the chilling documentary on Netflix Our Father which details the story of Dr. Cline in Indianapolis who is known to have at least 94 offspring through fraudulent assisted reproduction. Jacoba Ballard was the first offspring to discover the connection and took a primary role both in connecting with the other half siblings, and in taking action against Dr. Cline. Ms. Ballard is expected to testify at the Judiciary Committee hearing on these provisions in Sub. SB 288 on November 29.

Proponents expected to testify in person at Tuesday’s hearing include:

  • Jacoba Ballard, from Indiana, the first offspring to discover the actions of Dr. Cline who is now known to have at least 94 offspring, featured in the Netflix documentary Our Father.
  • Carrie Lauterbach from the Dayton, Ohio area who recently discovered she was conceived through fertility fraud.
  • Jody Lynee Madeira, Professor of Law and co-director of the Center for Law, Society, and Culture at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law in Bloomington Indiana.
  • Betsie Norris, Founder and Executive Director, Adoption Network Cleveland.

Select proponents expected to submit written testimony at Tuesday’s hearing include:

  • Eve Wiley of Texas, who after discovering that she was conceived by fertility fraud was the driving force behind establishing law on this topic in Texas and other states.
  • Michelle, an Ohioan who now lives in Indiana, who recently discovered she was conceived through fertility fraud.
  • Tyler Sniff, an Ohioan who now lives in Georgia who recently discovered that he was donor-conceived, VP Legal Affairs and Asst VP Government Affairs US Donor Conceived Council.
  •  Albert Frantz is an American donor conceived person based in Vienna, Austria. He was part of the very first delegation of donor and surrogacy conceived individuals to testify before the United States.