FRESNO, Calif.--In this lifetime there can be few thrills greater than witnessing a fellow American take her first steps in freedom. And so it was with Sarah Saga, a plucky American mother of two whose cause this newspaper championed when she and her children sought refuge last week in the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah. In what must be seen as a bittersweet victory, the 24-year-old Ms. Saga stepped off an airplane here this Tuesday night into the loving arms of a mother who's had to wait 18 years for that embrace.

It was a victory because Ms. Saga's father, who had kept her in Saudi Arabia since age six, had always sworn to Ms. Saga's mother, Debbie Dornier, that he'd see their daughter dead before he'd ever see her go to America. It is also bittersweet, because of the awful cost the Saudis exacted: The price of seeing her mother again was leaving her young son and daughter behind.

In coming to America, Ms. Saga proved her father wrong, no mean feat for a woman in Saudi Arabia. It serves, moreover, as public confirmation of what a more engaged approach from the U.S. might yet achieve for others just like her. Unfortunately, it's also a reminder of how much more needs to be done, especially for American women not quite up to the risk of making a run for an embassy.

"To America I want to say, 'thank you, thank you' for all your help," says a tired but happy Ms. Saga, sitting in a living room festooned with pink and white balloons celebrating her freedom and full of American aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents who haven't seen her since she was a little girl. "To my children, I want them to know that I will never give up on them."

Keeping that promise will not be easy. As a result of Ms. Saga's long detention in Saudi Arabia and arranged marriage, her children are not only Saudi-born but are today with a husband who can count on the full powers of the Saudi government to help prevent their even visiting the U.S.

Still, it's a particularly propitious moment to ponder their fate. Today the Senate Foreign Relations Committee takes up the issue of children abducted and/or wrongfully cut off from their American parents, typically (as in the case of Ms. Saga's own father) in defiance of a U.S. custody order.

For years the State Department's answer about what it could do was depressingly blunt: Not much. But last year, a series of hearings on Saudi Arabia, chaired by Indiana Republican Dan Burton, finally brought public attention to two crying injustices.

First is the system of law that makes that kingdom the only place in the world where an American woman is not free to leave unless her husband or father gives permission. Second was the often appalling behavior of the State Department toward American women who found themselves in these circumstances, such as the mother who was told that our Riyadh embassy was "not a hotel" and escorted out by Marines when she and her children fled there for help. In response, Prince Saud al-Faisal announced that he would henceforth allow any American woman who wanted to leave to go. And Ambassador Robert Jordan vowed that no American woman would ever be thrown out from a U.S. embassy or consulate on his watch.

The catch, of course, was that the promise does not extend to children, effectively blackmailing mothers. And to the Saudis, it doesn't even matter whether these children are born in America. Which is why an unnamed American woman who fled to the same Jeddah consulate only days before Ms. Saga didn't get out.

So why did Ms. Saga agree to give up her kids? The answer is simple: her fear that her father would have her killed if she stayed. Even sympathetic Saudis, she says, told her there was no turning back, and she figured she was of better use to her children alive in America than dead in Saudi Arabia. "There was no choice," she says flatly.

Certainly Ambassador Jordan deserves full marks for sticking to his promise in what must have been trying circumstances. But as much as we celebrate Ms. Saga's deliverance, it should give us pause. Surely no American mother should be forced to choose between her children and her life and freedom. And exercising that freedom shouldn't require the combined efforts of this newspaper, daily exposure on the FOX News Channel and a desperate flight to a U.S. consulate. And notwithstanding the joint Saudi-State distaste for publicity, none of this would have happened too without the push by their joint nemesis, Pat Roush.

If things are to improve, the State Department must cease treating these matters as private disputes and beginning every explanation with the phrase "under Saudi law." As Ms. Saga notes, the Saudis take a different approach, actively lobbying her husband not to agree to let their children go to America. Under the status quo created by Saudi intransigence, not only are Americans denied their freedom but Americans and Saudis alike are denied any chance for civilized custody arrangements that would allow children to be with their Saudi fathers in Saudi Arabia and their American mothers in America. The sad fact is that State imposes no sanction on the Saudis for their outrageous behavior.

But here in the Dornier living room, those are tomorrow's battles. Today they celebrate freedom. And for the children left behind, Ms. Saga refuses to give up hope: After all, it wasn't long ago that the reunion she is now enjoying would have been impossible.