PA House Children and Youth — 2026-10-05

Difficulties. Passing the mic. Passing the mic. Good.

Good morning. I am Chairwoman Klunk.

I'm Representative John Schlegel. I represent the 101st Legislative District in the heart of Lebanon County.

Representative Walsh from the 117th District in Luzerne County.

I'm State Representative Dorisha Parker of the 198th District Philadelphia.

Chair Clunk, would you like to offer any opening remarks? Thanks, Chairwoman McNeil. I just want to say thank you for bringing this up. I've had the opportunity to talk with some of the testifiers and some other advocates on this bill. Look forward to hearing the testimony and getting some answers to some additional questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning, members of the committee. My name is Kelsey Vander Ville-Ranyard, and I am the Director of Policy and Advocacy at Ethical Family Building, a national 501c3 nonprofit working to safeguard domestic adoptions through advocacy transparency and education Thank you to Representative McNeil and the bill co for their leadership on this issue Our organization has been studying the patchwork of state laws that govern private adoption matters and a problem that has plagued this sector for several years I want to take a few minutes to tell you how this problem is impacting PA residents and why HB2123 is the right response. Unlicensed adoption intermediaries are individuals or entities who act as middlemen between expectant mothers and adoptive parents. in exchange for a matching fee that often ranges from $15,000 to $45,000. Unlike licensed adoption providers, they are not subject to any education or social work requirements. They hold no license or certification and are not subject to any child welfare oversight. These entities, along with some out-of-state licensed providers, rely on targeted, often deceptive, online advertising to solicit expectant mothers, despite not being licensed or allowed to provide adoption services in Pennsylvania. Here is the national landscape. 33 states prohibit unlicensed intermediaries from providing adoption services, and 31 states prohibit them from advertising. Of that 31, 22 restrict advertising to in-state licensed providers only. Pennsylvania is just one of two states in the country that expressly allows unlicensed intermediaries to provide adoption services. The other state is South Dakota. When it comes to adoption advertising, Pennsylvania is one of 15 states that is silent on this issue. Notably, of the states that prohibit unlicensed intermediaries, most impose criminal penalties, not just civil ones. These laws don't break down along red state, blue state lines. Many are outdated and didn't contemplate digital communication when enacted. HB 2123 provides a modern response to this problem. The current law leaves Pennsylvanians exposed to real harm. For adopted children, they are often beginning their lives as commodities, with their placements being flippantly handled by brokers who internally shop these adoption opportunities by prioritizing families who have liquid funds to pay their finder's fees over families who would be good matches for the child's needs. This callousness can result in disrupted placements and preventable instability that can be traced directly back to the absence of credentialed license leadership at the outset. For adoptive parents, financial loss and emotional turmoil, often in the tens of thousands of dollars. For the past several years, I have probably spoken to at least one adoptive parent a week who has contacted our office in exhaustion because they lost their entire life savings to an unlicensed adoption broker who preyed upon their desire to become parents for adoption. Last but not least, expected parents. Pregnant women considering adoption are often in crisis without family support, experiencing myriad challenges, including financial hardship. They don't know how to they don't know to look for a licensed adoption provider. They're simply going online to find information about adoption, someone that can help and trusting that their Google search will lead them to a trustworthy source. When they click on an ad for an unlicensed adoption provider, they don't realize that by choosing this provider, they will likely be deprived of receiving options counseling, mental health support, education about their legal rights. When a woman looking for help with adoption clicks on an ad from an unlicensed adoption broker, she has no idea that she is about to be exploited by a paid for-profit intermediary with a large financial stake in her decision of whether to parent her child or place that child for adoption. I am not just an adoption advocate. I am also a birth mom myself. In 2016, I made the difficult life altering decision to place my baby for adoption. I know firsthand the importance of working with a licensed ethical provider and having access to legal representation when going through the adoption process I want to tell you about another birth mother Tammy who I met in 2024 Tammy was from Pennsylvania. She had a documented intellectual disability and was living in subsidized housing when she found out she was pregnant. Tammy knew she didn't have the support or resources necessary to parent her child, so she looked online for adoption help and clicked on the first result that appeared. It was a paid ad from an unlicensed for-profit adoption broker from Virginia. The broker offered her $9,000 in cash if she placed her child, sold Tammy's contact information to an agency for $15,200, and then arranged for her to travel to Utah, a state that has far fewer protections for birth mothers than Pennsylvania. After arriving in Utah, Tammy gave birth, and place her child through a for-profit agency that routinely charges adoptive parents an upwards of $88,000 for an adoption, double the national average. Tammy went through this process without any legal guidance. She received no mental health support and little to no postpartum medical care. After returning to Pennsylvania, Tammy was homeless for several months. HB 2123 brings Pennsylvania in line with the national consensus that adoption services should be provided by licensed, accountable professionals, not unlicensed, unregulated actors who aren't subject to oversight in Pennsylvania. HB 2123 also provides expectant mothers like Tammy and myself the chance to be represented by legal counsel during the legal process of adoption to ensure we know our rights. We urge the committee to advance HB 2123, and Ethical Family Building stands ready as a resource as this bill moves forward. Thank you.

Hello, members of the committee. I'm Catherine Russell. I'm a licensed social worker, and I'm director of Absolute Love Adoptions. We're a Pennsylvania Department of Human Services licensed nonprofit adoption agency. As an adoption professional with nearly 15 years in this field, I'd like to share my observations on why HB2123 is an essential step in establishing protections for both expectant parents considering adoption and adopting families who are living in our state. For adopting families in Pennsylvania, our first interactions are during the home study process. During this time, we both vet families for suitability and educate them on core concepts relevant to raising an adopted child. During this time, they learn about common challenges in adoption relationships, identity development, history of adoption, and ethical dilemmas in the adoption industry. I've never seen a family choose to sign on with a facilitator after this education. However, many of our clients are coming to us for a home study after they've already signed contracts with a facilitator. Having likely Googled adoption agency near me, they are led to search results in which nearly all of the options are facilitators, but they don't yet have the education to recognize this. They end up signing an $18,000 plus contract and then get routed back to their state's licensed agencies like us to complete a home study. Then they realize that they've signed on with a facilitator and they have no way of terminating their contract without losing their money. For most, this is not an option. For those who have no choice but to stay on, the vast majority never see a placement. At the end of their two contract they are out of resources and cannot afford to start the process again elsewhere They withdraw from the wait and many never become parents We had calls from four of five families on our caseload last year whose journey ended this way We saw one successful placement. For that one family, despite the success, it was a very difficult experience. Their first match dissolved when the expectant mom who had been planning adoption with them stopped responding. The facilitator does not provide any support services, so they navigated this alone. The second match was successful. However, they were overwhelmed by the utter lack of support, typically during a placement and agency social workers present at the hospital to help both parties during the delicate time between birth and placement. They educate the medical staff in being mindful of the nuances in the adoption relationship, and they support birth and adoptive parent relationship building, facilitate highly emotional conversations, and mediate tensions. A facilitator offers none of this, so adoptive parents are left to do the work of a trained professional on their own. Despite their success, this family said they would never use a facilitator again. For expectant mothers, it's even worse. They are met with the same Google search results and have no idea that they're not real agencies and are not local. They get no support services, just phone numbers of prospective adoptive parents, and a handoff to an attorney to sign papers for placement. With an agency placement, a social worker meets a new expectant mom client in her home and community to understand her reasons for considering adoption, and we evaluate her resources. We have many meetings before birth, which include accompanying her to prenatal visits, educating her on the lifelong impact of adoption, connecting her to social support and mental health services, and helping her identify the adoptive family. We're there for delivery, consent signing, and visits in the days and weeks after. I worked with a mom who placed through a facilitator eight years prior to my contact with her. She told me that she called a number off Google, was given the connection to an adoptive family, and then made an adoption plan. She never had contact in person with anyone. A few days after birth, the adoptive family came and got the baby, and she has no relationship with them. She chose to place another child last year with our agency. We spent a lot of time together gathering resources, choosing a family, and building a relationship between them before delivery and in the days after. We still stay in contact, and she has a relationship with her daughter and the adoptive family. She tells me that the experience with my agency empowered her and healed a part of her that she lost during that first adoption. She says she finally felt seen as a person and as a mother. This matters. She matters, as do all of the women who place children for adoption. We need laws then to protect her, and we need them now so that all of the women and families in the adoption space can feel seen and empowered. Thank you for being here.

Good morning. okay oh hello good wonderful good morning representatives and committee members thank you very much for including my testimony today my name is Elizabeth Vaisman I'm a Pennsylvania resident and licensed attorney in this great state I've lived in Pennsylvania for most of my life growing up in Berks County going to college in Philadelphia and being a practicing attorney here for the last 10 plus years. I started in adoption as a legal assistant working for an adoption agency in Berks County that serviced the entire state and then returning there as an attorney after law school. In this position, I worked with hundreds of families and then since then went on to private practice and continue to work in adoption. I've worked with hundreds of placements for birth parents, adoptive parents, representing either side, neither both, in Pennsylvania and also in other states. I also manage the agency's yearly compliance through DHS successfully every year. I care deeply about this state, its people, and I'm honored to work with families during one of the most difficult moments of their life. Today I'm speaking to you in support of HB 2123, a law to deter unethical adoption practices that negatively impact families and to keep the hard earned money of PA residents in our state and towards their growing families. Our Adoption Act has strong protections for families and children in Pennsylvania, and this law will only further create legal and financial safeguards. Countless times, as Catherine and Kelsey have mentioned, we have seen the emotional and financial harm that these unlicensed brokers cause to PA birth parents, mothers and fathers, to adoptive parents, and the adoption community as a whole. Unlicensed brokers reach into Pennsylvania, they exploit our communities, and they strip PA residents of their legal rights and financial resources. I encourage you to see not only the emotional and financial toll, sorry, the emotional and ethical toll, but also the significant financial and consumer protection problem. Many of our neighboring states do not allow such facilitators in adoption in their state, and there's a national movement to stop this practice. When I started in adoption in 2010 as a legal assistant, things were quite different. Families would get support in their community, churches, schools, doctors, community centers, leading to local and specialized support of agencies, attorneys, and social services. Today, PA residents wanting to grow their families or mothers and fathers facing unexpected pregnancy, they go online to seek this information. They're on the phone in the comfort of their own home and privacy. You'd think this would lead to experienced professionals acting in your best interests. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Both birth parents and adoptive parents are misdirected to costly and problematic companies. with no state or interstate oversight, and led astray legally. This has created and catapulted a black market of bad actors reaching across state lines to exploit PA residents in their most vulnerable moments. A quick search on my phone on the train here from Philadelphia for a make-an-adoption plan led me not to a page of PA adoption agencies, but to a list full of facilitators that I know charge $20K plus for match. In many ways, HB 2123 is a consumer protection law in addition to protecting children and families. By limiting intermediaries to licensed PA attorneys and agencies, you protect constituents from predatory behavior from unlicensed companies that charge tens of thousands of dollars and have no recourse for wrongdoing. To fund adoption, adoptive parents, many of who have endured years of infertility and often loss, They are taking out loans, home equity lines of credit, and early retirement withdrawals just to fund this adoption. Many adoptions don't go forward, and families are forced to pay matching fees several times and forced to stay with the same broker they had previously paid. Adoptions are being completed out of state in addition to these broker fees, because they are not attorneys and they can't actually complete the adoption. MP residents are paying out lawyers out court fees and out social workers funding out businesses and legal systems for an adoption that occurred in Pennsylvania This dynamic is hurting PA families and necessarily shifting significant funds from new families to out-of-state. HB 2123 limits intermediaries to PA-licensed agencies, requires birth parents to have the option for separate legal representation, and creates high financial penalties that will return money back to PA constituents. This will only promote business towards PA attorneys and agencies and deter bad actors. Such brokers can take the steps to become licensed agencies and attorneys in our state and subject themselves to our state law. Just like I would have to be licensed in another state to practice law there, they can do the same. There is no additional financial burden to the state under HB 2123, and it will only keep money in the pockets of PA families, towards our courts and legal systems, towards our businesses, and towards state entities that provide these licensing services. By enacting HB 2123, you have the opportunity to drastically improve the legal and financial safeguards of PA constituents. Thank you very much for your time

Thank you, Madam Chair. As someone that likes to think that I know a little bit about the adoption process, and then listing the testimony relative to prospective parents Googling and the amount of money potentially that they have to spend, I'm kind of curious if you could talk a little bit about what is it about the adoption process that would cause prospective parents to just go out on their own and Google spending the kind of money to people that in most cases they don't even know? I really think it's the nature of what adoption is, such a private and sensitive matter. Families don't know where to start. They often might be searching this before the other party is ready if they're in a relationship. And the first place they're turning is the Internet. I'm not sure where else they would turn, especially with our communities being less centered around these third spaces, like community centers, churches, and schools. You're going to your phone first. And, frankly, when you look at these lists that come up, they look like agencies. Oftentimes they are licensed in other states or they're attorneys licensed in other states. So even for me, in this space for many years, I have to go in and look and see, oh, are they licensed here now, are they not, each time that I'm either looking at them or have clients come to me. So it really is the first place they're starting. Even when I meet with clients that haven't Googled, that just scheduled an appointment with an attorney to go through this, they're not even aware that this exists. And they're actually quite shocked that it even is allowed. I think it's just something that between the growing digital age has shifted that people haven't realized and are only finding out once they have that match. And then just a step further, oftentimes this isn't people's first choice, right? They're coming to adoption after years in fertility, maybe fertility treatments at clinics, failures. And so they're quite desperate, for lack of a better word. And these groups are promising them, you know, a match within three months, within six months. think they're commodifying the situation. So that's why I would think because of desperation, the vulnerability, and the sensitivity, they're going on their phones and they're looking online. Thank you very much Representative Robbish It for Robbish It OK I the new girl So yeah I just wanted to talk a little bit about the Adoption Intermediate Services Fund how that would be created, and then the funds would be determined to use by DHS. Do other states have this kind of fund? I'm just curious how that all operates. I will answer your question. I don't mean to deflect. My understanding is actually there's going to be some shifts to the law that will have the funds go to the general fund instead of the adoption intermediary services fund. So I'm happy to talk about that, but my understanding is agreed upon for that to shift. But other states treat this differently. In some states, it's actually criminalized. You're not allowed to do it at all and can have criminal penalties. In some states, there are funds where the money goes in and then can be used for the state. I would not, Kelsey would probably be the best one to answer because she is the one doing this more nationally. I can speak best to Pennsylvania, but just in our neighboring states, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland do not allow this. Just the ones right around us.

So. Great. Thank you. Thank you. With no further questions, I'd like to thank you all for taking the time. Oh, I thought you meant at the end. OK. Chair Clunk. Thank you, Chair McNeil, and thank you ladies for joining us today. I do understand that there is an amendment. I know some of the concerns based on our conversations over the past couple of months have led to this amendment, and I appreciate the Chairwoman in working with us in trying to clarify that portion regarding the fund, ensuring that it goes to the general fund. Creating another fund in Pennsylvania can be a little daunting, administratively challenging, and making sure that it's properly housed in the right agency with the attorney general focusing on those civil penalties I think is really important. So I appreciate that, that we'll be coming here when we vote on the bill later this week on Wednesday. I did have just a couple of comments and some questions When this came to me I had no idea that this was happening So I truly appreciate you all educating us on this topic And it's just so sad to hear these stories about, you know, women and families that are, you know, on both sides of the coin. You know, the birth mom who's, you know, being totally exploited and, you know, sent to Utah with no way of coming home, thinking that she has a loving family for her son or daughter, and then just to be exploited. It's almost criminal. So I know the chairwoman is not looking at going the criminal route, but to me that's just criminal to do that to a family. Children should not be treated as commodities. These birth moms should not be treated like commodities. We need to ensure legal counsel for both sides. That's one thing in the bill that I'm really encouraged by as an attorney, making sure that we have representation on both sides. So, and one other thing that I did see in the bill that I did have a question about in relation to other states is the home study section. And I know so many of your agencies here in Pennsylvania are brought in on that home study portion. So one of my questions is related to the training that's required. It starts on page 2 of the bill, and it continues into page 3, just if you want to look at it for reference. So it adds that a home study may include a minimum of six hours of training on transracial adoption, attachment, and trauma-informed parenting. So my question is, you know, since that's a may, it's not a shall, so it wouldn't be required. How is that typically implemented in other states, especially I know some operate in other states? how does this, how is this incorporated in those home studies, if you may know, and how does this actually work? You know, are these Zoom trainings? Are they in-person trainings? And what's the type of curriculum attached to those home studies and trainings? Thank you.

Kelsey, if you want to take that. The states are very mismatched and I don't have it in front of me, actually. I'm happy to compile that information and send it to the committee after the hearing. But I will say many states do have our requirements, hours attached to the requirements for private adoption. Alabama is one that comes to mind. I believe, Catherine, the number is they require 30 hours. And so Pennsylvania does lag quite behind in that regard. and yeah that's that's the most I can really say. Thank you for that I appreciate that and

lot of ads targeted towards them. We haven't been able to get the same kind of effort to change those laws at this point. I'm hopeful about that if South Dakota is listening. But in Pennsylvania, I think one of the biggest reasons they're being targeted is, yes, the laws, they are wide open for these kinds of profiteers to come in and target. And you also have two major cities, and very highly populated areas. So they're going to be looking, you know, for lack of better phrasing, they're going to be looking to see where they can put out an ad and get the biggest bang for their buck. Advertising is extremely expensive. Online advertising operates in a competitive scheme. So you're bidding, basically, to show up at the top of the page. And what happens is all of these outside people know that they can bid with no consequences in Pennsylvania, all over the state. And so they are crowding out local license providers and an agency like Catherine's agency or any of the other several license agencies in Pennsylvania. They they have small budgets. They are not going to be able to compete with large corporate out agencies or these unlicensed adoption intermediaries that are a one show They have no overhead costs They don have to pay to be licensed Yeah they can they can throw you know cast a line out in Philadelphia and probably clean up with a lot of clicks and calls from their, from their ads. So. Chairwoman Kong, do you mind if I add something to that?

There are in states where in their state it isn't allowed. So, for example, California, there was, used to be a number of attorneys that were operating as facilitators, and they were licensed in California, but nowhere else. Just taking a step back, when I first started in supporting ethical family building and the more federal Adopt Act, I was looking into this mainly in Pennsylvania but also across the U.S., And something that stuck out to me was in looking at one of the biggest facilitators that we see nationwide on their page for Pennsylvania, there was all these cities listed on the bottom, which were obviously there to grab Google SEO. And if someone was in that city, they're like, oh, I have an agency here. No, they actually don't. When I looked at all of them, it clicked in my mind. They were all the poorest cities in our state. So not only are they coming in because they can, because our law allows it, they're also targeting the lowest income, most vulnerable. And a lot of these were areas where it had low reunification rates in the public system. So if somebody had had a child place and wasn't able to be reunified with them, private adoption might seem like a better route the second, third, fourth time. And they're going to go online, as we talked about. And if they see, oh, you know, Luzerne County Adoption Agency, they think that that's what it is and it isn't. So they're not only just targeting it because our state allows it, They're also targeting specifically the poorest areas and most vulnerable women and men in our state that don't have anywhere else to turn. In terms of how it's impacting attorneys, we get these cases so late. You wouldn't even believe, like, a week before, you know, the baby is due. They call us. They're like, hey, we have this match. We hear the same story. Something that's super common is we hear that they have paid expenses to the birth mother. She has no idea that's not allowed in the state. Suddenly they have to use the state where the adoptive parents are because it's the only option. So she's no longer even able to use our state laws. The birth fathers are rarely named. It's the same story. Met one time online. This is his name. I don't know who he is. Our state has protections for fathers. We do have to notify them, and it's important, obviously, for the child. So when I'm getting the case, let's say I'm representing a birth mother, it's a week or two before she's due. It's the same story, and we have to make it work legally, of course, and counsel them and explain to them what this means. And that often is the first time the adoptive parents and the birth parents are learning that this is an unlicensed broker that they're working with when they've been matched, maybe met, and are a week before the due date. These situations, most adoptions, I would say, especially when I was at the agency, maybe 30% to 40% don't go forward. The woman or the expectant father choose to parent and the adoption doesn't proceed. In these facilitator placements, I would say it's more like 60% to 75% don't go forward because there's no work done in advance. And obviously the state suffers, but both individuals and the child is really hurt in these situations.

I'm in more favor of criminal penalties. I think our organization shares that view, that mostly because a criminal penalty, at its worst in these scenarios, at their worst, it is child trafficking. I mean, it truly is. And I think everybody, the testifiers would probably agree with me there, which I think everybody on the committee would agree, is if this is equaling child trafficking at its worst, like that would deserve a criminal penalty. because that's a very serious matter and safety issue. But also, practically speaking, a criminal penalty is effective because the attorney general allocates resources to enforce a criminal penalty more so than a civil. And also sometimes some of the civil penalties can be they rely on like a private right of action or something like that. And what I'm most advocating for is accessibility to enforcement. A lot of times when we get a call from a mom who has had her whole entire life flipped upside down and devastated by one of these adoption intermediaries, and you look at their state law and it relies on them to litigate, gives them the pathway to do so. But you're looking at this mom who's, you know, relying on government benefits to just survive and she's not going to litigate. And so I want accessibility of enforcement personally, you know, as a birth mom and also as a professional. So, yeah, I am in favor of those. I do understand the hesitation on both sides of the aisle for criminal penalties, adding more to the code and also, you know, adding more people to incarceration systems. I understand all of those things. This is a very small group across the nation that is targeting, they're targeting vulnerable people in Pennsylvania and other states as well. They're a very small group of offenders. I am in California. I don't hold it against me. I am. We did, just like Liz said, we passed a law in 2023 to prohibit facilitators. We were one of, we were just like Pennsylvania and South Dakota. We were actually the first state to codify unlicensed intermediaries. We called them facilitators into our law in 1996. We, by the time the law passed to prohibit them, 27 years had passed by. So much harm had been done. And we designated, we attached a misdemeanor to it. To this day, we have not been able to get the state to enforce the law. It been really hard now On the flip side these 20 facilitators most of them are not in business anymore It did have a large deterrent effect So that is a possibility. However, the difference is with California, we had all these facilitators practicing in our state. Pennsylvania has zero in their state. They're dealing with the influx of outsiders coming in. So it is quite a different scenario.

Absolutely. I think that would be incredible. And it just makes me think of when Act 101 was passed and the post-adoption contact was in place. I mean, I still use that pamphlet that you guys created when I have new families. I say, this is what Pennsylvania law allows. You need to know about it. And this explains it. So giving us more tools like that would be incredible. I think also at the level of the social service organizations, because often when families are considering adoption or even someone that was an expectant parent, they might know someone that works for DHS. They might reach out to their county, right, to do a profile there to potentially pursue the foster to adopt route. And I don't want to speak for all of them, but I don't think they know about what's going on. This is such a specific thing that has really, really increased in the last 10, 30 years. 15 years. So I think education both internally, I think for the hospital systems, you know, each hospital has a list of adoption agencies. And when I have cases, I ask the hospital for them. And oftentimes they have facilitator on there, which is just shocking, right? But they maybe had one case that went well, and then they add them to the list. So I think education for our healthcare providers, for, you know, school systems, and for the DHS social services, but I think it could be as simple as like what you all did with Act 101 where you have just the bulletin information and just catching them you know much earlier. And Kelsey can speak more to it too but there's been a big push with just Google. You know why are they allowing when you type in like literally on the train here when I type that in why are there no licensed agencies coming up when I'm sitting in Pennsylvania and putting that on my phone. And if you type in things like give up a baby or make an adoption plan completely different things that you're seeing. And what was interesting too, actually, with one of them, I noticed they had become licensed here. So even though this isn't the law yet, it's a deterrent factor, as Kelsey mentioned. But if these agencies do want to work here and they're licensed elsewhere, why not just get licensed here as well? So I think it already is starting to push that. Long way to answer your question. Yes, I think education would be really important for all sides.

thank you representative parker thank you for um your testimonies and weighing in on these questions mine was a little bit i'm going to stay in the line one of the things that you mentioned um you talked about the fathers not being a part or not being involved what has what can we do or what would be your recommendation to change that Because the last time i checked i know i don have a magic wand but it does take two people to conceive and i know i a woman but i do know someone personally who went through the adoption period and only because the father was deceased um it made the the adoption period very challenging because the family wanted to weigh in because they thought it was some monetary gain out of the family adopting. So what would you be saying that had the father be involved?

Sure. Thank you.

Thank you so much. It is a very disservice to hear that a facilitator is making a woman go through that type of hardship and then you then have to pull back the layer so i'll probably talk to you offline to see what we can do as relates to a facilitator because i don't want that person to make that type of decision now if the woman waves off because it was domestic violence or if the fact that you know some mental health challenges or if the person's incarcerated or dead So many different stipulations, but regardless how we all feel, that the child still has a right to know who the father is. So thank you for that.

has this thank you with no further questions I'd like to thank you all for taking the time to speak

Thank you.