A Law Behind Progress

The United States has denied citizenship to the twin daughters of an American citizen living in Israel. The mother, Ellie Lavi, conceived her children through the process of in-vitro fertilization. Ms. Lavi used donor sperm and a donor egg from a clinic. As a result, the United States Department has not granted the twins citizenship because the department cannot confirm that one of the biological parents is a United States citizen. According to the department, a child born through in-vitro fertilization is not considered a United States citizen unless one of the biological parents is an American. This is the case even if the birth mother is a citizen. 

Ms. Lavi is now in a interesting bind. Her daughters can still become citizens of the United States if she were to bring them to the United States and have them live here for 6 months. Afterwards, she would have to file some paperwork, but her daughters would be citizens. However, Ms. Lavi believes that citizenship should be an automatic right. This raises an interesting problem. If the daughters are not citizens of the United States, then in what country are they citizens? This might become an increasing problem if in-vitro fertilization continues to be used in foreign countries like Israel.

See Scott Stump, Born To American Mom, In-Vitro Twins Denied Citizenship, Today Show, Apr. 17, 2012.

Special thanks to David S. Luber (Attorney at law, Florida Probate Attorney Wills and Estates Law Firm) for bringing this article to my attention.