McKenna West, the surrogate who refused to abort a baby diagnosed with a treatable heart condition, has filed an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court to block a California order that stripped her of any role in the newborn's care.
West's attorneys filed the application, docketed as No. 26A325, asking Justice Elena Kagan to temporarily halt a Los Angeles court ruling that declared biological parents Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar the baby's sole legal parents. The four-week-old boy was born August 12 with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a severe defect that leaves the left side of the heart unable to pump blood effectively. Fewer than 1,000 babies a year are born with the condition, and without surgery, death can follow within days or weeks.
The baby underwent open-heart surgery on August 17 and remains medically fragile, Fox News reported. West, an Alaska cardiac nurse, contends the biological parents plan to move the child from a Texas hospital to California for hospice care rather than continue the series of lifesaving surgeries he needs. Her filing warns that transfer could happen "around September 17, if not sooner."
The dispute traces back to a surrogacy contract between West and the California-based couple. After prenatal testing revealed the baby's underdeveloped heart, Ahmed and Gilkar asked West to terminate the pregnancy at 23 weeks, AP News reported. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has said the biological parents "demanded" the abortion. Ahmed and Gilkar deny forcing West to end the pregnancy, and their attorneys say West initially agreed to the procedure. The couple has not denied that they considered abortion after learning of the diagnosis but say they later elected to continue the pregnancy.
West refused. She traveled from Alaska to Texas, a state that bans most abortions, to give birth and seek specialized cardiac care for the baby she named Gabriel. The biological parents call the child Rumi.
Breitbart reported that the surrogacy contract contained an "abortion on demand" clause the biological parents invoked. West has said publicly that she would not comply.
In a statement released earlier in the dispute, West put it plainly:
"Every life matters. No woman should be forced to end the life of the baby she is carrying, including me... Baby Gabriel should receive a chance at life."
The survival statistics back her concern. Babies with hypoplastic left heart syndrome who receive surgery have a 75 percent chance of living to age five, and those who survive their first year have a 90 percent chance of reaching age 18. The condition is serious, but it is not a death sentence, if the child receives treatment.
In August, Paxton stepped in on behalf of the then-unborn baby, working to ensure the child received lifesaving medical treatment after birth. A Texas judge ordered the hospital where the baby was born to provide that care and barred anyone from removing the child from the state. The Supreme Court has faced a heavy load of emergency filings this summer, and West's case now adds another volatile dispute to the docket.
At a custody hearing in Dallas on August 25, Gilkar spoke emotionally about the baby. "He's the most beautiful person I've ever seen," she told the court, wiping away tears. "He's the love of our lives. He's suffering a lot."
But the legal ground shifted against West. On September 2, a Texas court granted full credit to the California judgment establishing Ahmed and Gilkar as the baby's legal parents. The ruling dismissed West from the case with prejudice and cut off her access to information about the baby's medical condition. Gilkar and Ahmed also obtained a restraining order barring West from seeing or holding the child.
That sequence is what drove the emergency application to the Supreme Court. West's lawyers argued the stakes could not be higher, as the New York Post reported:
"The stakes of the decisions below are enormous. But because of the unlawful California judgment, she has been dismissed with prejudice from the Texas proceedings and denied any information about or control over the medically fragile child."
The filing lays out a grim timeline. West's legal team told the justices that the baby is in the middle of a course of several lifesaving surgeries. Removing him from the Texas hospital and placing him in hospice in California, where the biological parents reside, would effectively end that treatment. Emergency applications to the Supreme Court are relatively rare in family-law disputes, but the court has shown a willingness to act quickly on emergency requests when the circumstances demand it.
West's attorneys framed the urgency in their filing:
"Irreparable harm from Texas's enforcement of the California judgment matters immensely because [the baby] is in the midst of a course of several lifesaving surgeries needed to treat his condition."
They added that without Supreme Court intervention, West would have no access to information about the baby's condition, and no ability to advocate for continued treatment.
"Unless this Court provides relief from that judgment, M.W. will have no access to information about Baby G.'s condition."
The filing also warned that any future legal remedy could arrive too late: "Relief later in Texas proceedings may only restore her right to protect a child that has already passed."
The case exposes a gap in American surrogacy law that no single court has been able to close. Alaska, California, and Texas each played a role in the dispute, and each state's legal framework points in a different direction. California's courts recognized the biological parents' rights under that state's surrogacy statutes. Texas courts initially protected the baby's access to medical care but ultimately deferred to the California judgment. West initiated her own legal fight in Texas, seeking sole conservatorship, a bid that failed when the Dallas court dismissed her.
The Supreme Court has handled a range of contentious emergency petitions in recent months. Whether the justices choose to act on this one, and how quickly, could determine whether a four-week-old baby continues receiving surgery in Texas or is transferred to hospice in California.
Several critical questions remain unanswered. The Guardian reported on the filing but noted no response from the Supreme Court as of publication. The specific terms of the California parentage order have not been made public in detail. And the factual basis for West's claim that the baby could be moved as early as September 17 has not been independently confirmed.
What is confirmed: the baby is alive, he is undergoing treatment, and the woman who carried him for months and refused to end his life has been barred from the room. The biological parents say he is their child. West says he deserves a chance to live. A contract says one thing. A heartbeat says another.
The court that was built to settle questions like these now has one on its desk. Whether it acts before September 17 may be the only question that matters.
When a surrogacy contract includes an "abortion on demand" clause and a baby with a fighting chance is born anyway, the law ought to protect the child, not the fine print.