High-Tech Mom Vows to Fight for Federal Benefits

Four-year-old Judith Hart may look like her late father, but she isn’t eligible to collect federal survivor’s benefits because she was conceived after his death, with a sample of sperm he had frozen.

“An individual cannot acknowledge paternity of a child who is not yet in existence,” the Social Security Administration appeals council said in a ruling announced last week.

The council overturned a ruling by a judge who found in May that the girl is clearly Edward William Hart Jr.’s child, that she was born at his wish and that she should receive survivor’s benefits.

Nancy Hart, the girl’s mother, plans to ask a federal judge to overturn the council decision.

Like other states, Louisiana doesn’t recognize a child conceived after a parent’s death as an heir. The U.S. government relies on state law in deciding who gets Social Security.

Judith was conceived in September, 1990, with sperm frozen before Edward Hart began treatment for the cancer that killed him in June, 1990.

The Social Security Administration is reviewing whether to ask Congress to rewrite the laws to accommodate medical changes, said Phil Gambino, an agency spokesman.

Edward Hart’s work history as an aerospace engineer would entitle Judith to nearly $700 a month, for a total of at least $150,000, since survivor’s benefits are paid up to age 18--or 19 if the child is still in high school.