The patchwork of state laws sitting at the intersection of technology and society led a federal judge to make a direct appeal to Congress for an amendment to the Social Security Act that would address the new reality that a person can parent a child posthumously through medical technology and unify the distribution of survivor benefits to his or her children across the country.
As it stands now, children who were conceived in vitro after the death of a parent can collect benefits only if they qualify for them under the intestacy laws of the state in which the parent died, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in a case that it remanded to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit last year. Courts of appeals have split on the issue.
