It makes the child a citizen at birth, but that is not the same as a natural born citizen. The fact is, no one knows where the edges of the definition of "Natural Born Citizen" lie. They all know that born on US territory of two citizen parents makes one natural born. But either having only one US citizen parent, especially when that is the mother, or being born outside of US territory, is a horse of different color.
“Doesn’t being born to a United States Citizen Mother and a United States Citizen Father, as long as one parent has lived in the U.S., make the baby a natural born citizen, regardless of the location of birth?”
I’m not sure how I can answer this other than my own experience.
All I can tell you is the following:
My two brothers, my sister, and I were born in the Canal Zone of American parents.
Somewhere along the line, some nut in congress decided we needed to be “naturalized.”
My parents packed up my sister and I and we steamed out to New Orleans on one of our Panama Canal ships to face a judge.
My younger brother was not with us. My parents were going to take care of this later.
I have no idea where my “official” naturalization paper is. It probably went into the garbage a long time ago.
In the meantime, my older brother was already an officer in the U.S. Navy with all kinds of secret clearances. He was a communications officer on a ship.
He replied to us of the situation that it was the U.S. government to prove at this point he was not a U.S. citizen. They already knew he was born in the CZ so let them prove he was not a U.S citizen. Period.
Yes, he kept his job (the subject never came up); and when he left the Navy, he was in the Navy reserves for many years.
P.S.
Although I was born in the CZ, this does not make me eligible to become President of the United States.
Neither McCain had he been born in the CZ. Worse though, he was born in Colon, Republic of Panama and not the CZ.