CRB Legislative Committee
Liesl Nel-Themaat, Ph.D., HCLD(ABB)

Dear CRB members,

I am honored to assume the role of Legislative Committee Chair for the next two years. Thank you for trusting me with this big task.

The term indeed started with a BANG! As most of you probably know, Ohio Senator Schiavoni announced that he would propose a bill for control of cryostorage facilities in Ohio. Among other concerning issues, his original draft would mandate 24/7 surveillance of cryostorage tanks by an on-site person at any facility where human gametes or embryos are stored.

This, of course, needed our immediate attention and the Legislative Committee, still very much in its infancy, had to leap into action. As a South African native and the newly elected Legislative Committee Chair, I had no idea how state bills even work! Thankfully, I have an AWESOME new team of Legislative Committee members, consisting of Brenda Bordson, Corey Burke, Marina Gvakharia, Kim Pomeroy, Salu Ribeiro and Michael Stout. Without their willingness to jump in and sacrifice many hours and considerable effort to address the issue on such short notice, we may have forfeited the opportunity to influence the proposed Ohio bill. But with invaluable guidance from Mark Birenbaum and Tammy Schalue, we were able to have all members in our first committee conference call, compose a letter of opposition, generate a line-by-line critique of the bill, get both documents thoroughly reviewed and approved by all committee members and the CRB Board and submit it to AAB to forward to the Senator. And this all in 4 days!

What I have learned from the past week is that no legislative issue will be too much for this brand new committee to take on.

We have some exciting projects lined up for the next two years, including assembling a live, online document outlining unique reproductive laws in different states. As you can imagine, this will be a vast yet valuable undertaking, but this group of dedicated individuals has already proved themselves qualified for the task.

Therefore, stay tuned for more exciting news from the CRB Legislative Committee!

Liesl Nel-Themaat, Ph.D., HCLD(ABB)
Chair, CRB Legislative Committee