Enid Abrahami, a single mother by choice, conceived her first child with her own egg and a stranger’s sperm, thanks to a fertility clinic in New York. Abrahami then gave birth to her son in Israel, where she lives these days. She had no trouble attaining her son’s American citizenship. Abrahami, who has dual Israeli and American citizenship, grew up in both New York City and Tel Aviv.
When she decided to have a second child, Abrahami found that she was having trouble getting pregnant using her own eggs. So this time she used both somebody else’s egg—called a donor egg—and sperm from the same donor used to conceive her son. Again, for her second child, a daughter, the embryo was transferred to her uterus in New York and the baby was born in Israel.
But this time, when Abrahami went to fill out the paperwork for her daughter’s citizenship, a U.S. Embassy official learned that she was a single mom and had used donor sperm. The official then asked her, very directly, if she used a donor egg to make her baby.
“I literally felt like I left my body—it seemed so out of the blue,” Abrahami says. “It was one of the most violating experiences I have ever been through. How could they ask me that?”
Abrahami was told that she could not transfer her citizenship onto her daughter. She was told that citizenship is transferred only through DNA, and that she needed proof that at least one of the donors was a U.S. citizen. Most donations are made anonymously.
Abrahami isn’t the only U.S. citizen facing what appears to be a discrepancy in U.S. law. A child adopted overseas by an American is eligible for U.S. citizenship, but a child created from a donor egg and sperm and born overseas to a U.S. citizen must provide proof that one of the donors is a U.S. citizen. Read full article.
