Yesterday, a surprising news report was published about a U.S. woman living in Israel whose children born via in vitro fertilization (IVF) were denied U.S citizenship. When the woman, Chicago native Ellie Lavi, went to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to apply for citizenship for her twins, she was asked whether she had gotten pregnant at a fertility clinic and was told that her children were not eligible for citizenship unless she could prove that the egg donor or sperm donor was an American citizen.
Marna Gatlin, the founder of Parents Via Egg Donation (PVED) and a regular blogger for FertilityAuthority, wasn't surprised by the report and says this situation is not uncommon for parents she works with who are living in Israel. "These women are all American citizens who are choosing to live in Israel, working over there," she says. "Some of them may have a partner, a lot of them are single mothers by choice. So they've done donor egg, donor sperm. The majority of them have anonymous egg donors and sperm donors. The embassy will actually ask them if they've used an egg donor, or they will say: 'Are these your children?' And they'll say, 'Yes, these are my children.' And they'll say, 'Did you use an egg donor to have these kids?' And they'll be honest and they'll say, 'Well, OK, yes.' And they'll say, "We cannot register your child because we cannot prove this child is really an American citizen because we don't know if the egg donor and the sperm donor were American."
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