EIGHT MONTHS pregnant, Noor (not her real name) flew from Washington back home to Malaysia, desperate to arrive before her baby did. Travelling so close to a due date poses risks, but for her, giving birth overseas did too. Her child would not automatically receive Malaysian citizenship. The constitution guarantees that fathers can pass their nationality to children born abroad. But mothers must apply for it, a process that can leave foreign-born children in limbo for years. To avoid such a wait, Noor and her American husband even asked the Malaysian embassy in Washington to let her give birth there, technically on her country's soil, but in vain. So she hid her big belly under a heavy winter coat and boarded an aircraft. "I cannot fathom how the government can expect women to take on that level of risk," muses her husband.
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