A 4-year-old girl was awarded Social Security survivor benefits in a case that pitted bureaucracy against science: She was conceived through artificial insemination after her father died.
"I thought my lawyers were joking when they called me," Nancy Hart said Monday after learning that her daughter, Judith, was awarded monthly benefits of $700. "I thought this was so unlikely."Social Security Commissioner Shirley Chater announced the decision, which averted a federal court battle against Hart.
It was believed to be only the second time that survivor benefits had been granted to a child conceived artificially after the father's death.
The case raises "significant policy issues that were not contemplated when the Social Security Act was passed many years ago," Chater said.
"Recent advances in modern medical practice, particularly in the field of reproductive medicine, necessitate a careful review of current laws and regulations," she said.
In the meantime, Chater said, "We believe it would be inappropriate to deny benefit payments to Judith Hart."
A Social Security administrative law judge ruled in May that Judith was entitled to benefits, but a Social Security appeals panel overturned the decision six months later.
Hart then went to federal court, but the case had not been decided.
Hart's lawyers argued that Judith was denied benefits solely because of the circumstances of her birth, and they noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that such benefits cannot be denied to illegitimate children.
Judith was born in June 1991, nearly a year after her father, Edward Hart, an aerospace engineer, died from cancer. Hart had his sperm stored in case chemotherapy made him sterile.
Hart became pregnant in September 1990. William Rittenberg, one of Hart's lawyers, said the child will receive the benefits until she is 18.
Now that the case is settled, Hart, 42, plans to enter law school this fall to specialize in reproductive law.
"I can bring the human side to this kind of law because I've been there," she said. "You haven't heard the last of me."