State law just caught up with in-vitro technology.
A bill signed Saturday by Gov. Kathy Hochul will ensure the 3-year-old “miracle daughter” of a murdered New York City cop — who was conceived after his death — will be legally considered his biological child.
The bill was passed unanimously last week by state lawmakers to help the widow of Wenjian Liu secure Social Security benefits for Angelina.
The federal government doesn’t recognize such children when it comes to Social Security assistance, deferring to New York state’s inheritance laws, which also make no allowance for kids conceived this way.
Under New York’s current estate and inheritance law, the couple’s daughter was not considered Liu’s “biological” child — because he didn’t provide written consent for the use of his sperm in the presence of two witnesses.
Liu was shot and killed alongside his cop partner, Officer Rafael Ramos, in a Brooklyn ambush in 2014 — a double assassination that shook the city.
Liu’s wife, Pai Xia Chen, was still able to conceive and give birth to Angelina in 2017, using her dead husband’s preserved semen that was extracted from him just before he died.
The couple had only been recently married when he died, and planned to have kids.
“The case of Angelina and Wenjian Liu is an extraordinary one for which special considerations are necessary,” Gov. Hochul said in a statement. “I am proud to ensure that Angelina Liu receives the benefits she is entitled to, and I hope with the signing of this legislation that Angelina and her family are able to remember Detective Liu in peace.”
