The Today show had an interesting segment (which has been posted on MSNBC) about a pair of twins born to an American mother who are being denied US citizenship because the citizenship of the donor sperm and donor egg cannot be established.

According to the report:

"Children adopted by U.S. citizens or born to foreign citizens in the U.S. are granted status as Americans. However...children born to Americans overseas through in-vitro fertilization are denied American citizenship unless a donor can be proved to be a U.S. citizen. The laws were created to prevent people from fraudulently attaining status as Americans."

This surprises me to say the least. She carried the twins for nine months, and gave birth to them — does it really matter where the sperm and egg came from? less

The Today show had an interesting segment (which has been posted on MSNBC) about a pair of twins born to an American mother who are being denied US citizenship because the citizenship of the donor sperm and donor egg cannot be established.

According to the report:

"Children adopted by U.S. citizens or born to foreign citizens in the U.S. are granted status as Americans. However...children born to Americans overseas through in-vitro fertilization are denied American citizenship unless a donor can be proved to be a U.S. citizen. The laws were created to prevent people from fraudulently attaining status as Americans."

This surprises me to say the least. She carried the twins for nine months, and gave birth to them — does it really matter where the sperm and egg came from? less

Just because a child is born in the US doesn't automatically make it a US citizen. I am a Canadian who lives and works in the US through a visa, if I was to have a child here in the US it would automatically be a Canadian NOT an American. Citizenship for children is given through the parents, which at this point in time is defined by genetics, so if genetically the child is not yours it is not afforded the same rights.

I wouldn't so much call this "splitting hairs" so much as chalk it up to the fact that US Laws are old and need to be updated to reflect the change that technology has made to the way we define things like "Parenthood" and "Marriage".

Laws move very slowly and now there are going to be more "odd" cases. In vitro has been around for a while now but the popularity of it has really gone through the roof in the last 10 years. This is an odd case because most people go through the invitro process in the US not outside of the country.

Also an odd tidbit I picked up about citizenship laws here in the US. If those babies were given US citizenship and the donors came forward and it could be proven they were the genetic parents. Those parents could have the right to demand US citizenship, through their children less