Ohio House Bill 411 would amend Ohio adoption law to allow an adult to be adopted if the adult is the child of the spouse of the adoption petitioner and the adult consents to the adoption.

Currently, Ohio adoption law says that an adult can be adopted if the adult is disabled, mentally retarded, had a foster child care giver or child step-parent relationship with the adopters as a minor, of if he or she were in the permanent custody of a children services agency at the time he or she turned 18 and consents to the adoption.

In some situations after a couple marries they may want to combine their families. Under current Ohio adoption law, the other spouse’s adult child cannot be adopted if they were 18 at the time of the marriage. If, for example, a husband and wife get married and one spouse wants to adopt the children of the other and the other spouse might have some children that are minors and some that are adults, only the minor children could be adopted and not the adult children. Or, if a spouse remarries and changes her name, she may wish to have her minor children adopted and their names and birth certificates would be changed. However, if there was an adult child in this scenario, the adult child would be excluded and left out.

This pending legislation would cure this defect in Ohio’s adoption laws.

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