No American should ever have the awful choice Sarah Saga faced this week from her precarious sanctuary inside the U.S. consulate in Jeddah: your life and freedom, or your children. Yet that's exactly the choice Saudi Arabia is forcing on Ms. Saga, and other American women just like her.

Yesterday Ms. Saga celebrated--if that is the right word--her 24th birthday. Her mother tells us that on Thursday, in her room in the consulate, Ms. Saga met with three representatives from the Saudi government, along with three from the State Department. Ms. Saga believes her father is deranged and will kill her if she sets foot outside the consulate, which rules out returning her to him. But the Saudis won't let her leave with her children. With the proverbial gun to her head, Ms. Saga signed a paper agreeing to leave without them. But her mother tells us that Ms. Saga remains resolved to stay in the consulate with her kids.

Now, whether children should be deprived of automatic U.S. citizenship because their American mom has been a hostage in Saudi Arabia since age six may be an interesting legal exercise. But in reality a civilized solution need not be difficult. All that is needed is an arrangement guaranteeing that neither father nor mother will be cut off from the children. And the only thing preventing such agreements is that many Saudi fathers flout every existing custody ruling with the connivance of their government, either by kidnapping their kids back to Saudi Arabia or refusing to return them to America after a visit.

The official State line is that they are not in the custody business. That explains why this young American mom was given no legal advocate to guide her when the Saudis were allowed into the consulate to put this paper in front of her. At the least, this nasty affair ought to provoke Congress to ask Consular Affairs chief Maura Harty whether, for all of her promises last year that State would do better by American parents, this is a portfolio that is really better turned over to Justice.

If Ms. Saga does manage to make it to America by next Thursday--the day Ms. Harty testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on child abduction--surely her perspective would be an illuminating addition.