Posthumous Offspring

First, an introduction: I'm Hanah Metchis, and I'm this summer's Burton Gray Memorial Intern at Reason Magazine. It's great to be here taking part in a blog, and a magazine, that I've been a fan of for such a long time. And now for my first blog entry.

Family law too often defines fatherhood on a purely biological level, ignoring the emotional relationship between father and child. There are even horror stories about biological fathers forced to make back-payments for years of child support for offspring they didn't even know existed. Now the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has strengthened the biology-only view of fatherhood—but this time it's taxpayers who are getting the bill. The court ruled that children conceived from frozen sperm after the death of the father are entitled to Social Security survivor benefits.