McKenna West refused to abort baby Gabriel and gave birth to him in Texas last month.
Now a California court has stripped her from the fight to protect him.
So she's taking her case straight to the Supreme Court.
Surrogacy Contract's Abortion Clause Cited Over Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome Diagnosis
Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed hired West, an Alaska cardiac nurse, to carry their son through a surrogacy agreement.
Doctors found hypoplastic left heart syndrome at twenty weeks – a serious defect, but far from a death sentence.
Infants who get the standard three-stage surgery survive to age five at a 72 percent rate, and to age eighteen at 90 percent, according to New York-Presbyterian data.
Gilkar and Ahmed pointed to a clause in their contract and asked West to abort anyway.
West said no, and she meant it.
She told the surrogacy agency she could not end "this precious baby" after feeling him move, and she offered to raise him herself or find him a home rather than let anyone touch him.
Her reward was a bill: over $250,000 in penalties, the price tag they put on a baby they'd already decided not to keep.
She carried him to term anyway, flying from Alaska to Dallas so he could be born somewhere Texas law and Texas doctors would fight for him.
Court Ruling Sends Surrogate's Custody Fight to the Supreme Court
Once Gabriel was born, the fight shifted from the womb to the courtroom, and that's where West is losing.
A Los Angeles court declared Gilkar and Ahmed his legal parents in June.
West says she never agreed to that court's authority – she only showed up to argue it had none.
The judge ruled otherwise, deciding her 147-page jurisdictional challenge amounted to consent just by addressing the case at all.
Her lawyers call that exactly backward.
Showing up to contest a court's power isn't the same thing as agreeing to it.
West also argues the court papers never reached her the right way – she says the package meant for her ended up with her babysitter, who had no idea what was inside.
A Texas judge upheld the California ruling on September 2 and removed West from the case entirely.
She now has no legal standing to ask about Gabriel's condition, push back if his care is scaled down, or do anything but watch from outside.
So this week her attorneys went straight to Justice Elena Kagan – the one justice who can hit pause on California court rulings while the rest of this plays out – and asked her to freeze the decision before it's too late to matter.
What Surrogacy Law Doesn't Protect: A Woman Who Chose Life
This is the same script every time.
A surrogacy contract treats an unborn child like a returnable product, a woman refuses to go along with it, and the legal system does everything possible to make her pay for having a conscience.
Congress has already noticed the pattern.
Rep. Andy Ogles introduced the Preventing Forced Abortions Act this year specifically to stop federal courts from enforcing contract clauses that pressure surrogates into abortion, with National Right to Life and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America backing him.
"No woman should ever be forced to murder a child because of a provision buried in a contract," Ogles said when he introduced it.
That's the fight happening in West's case right now, just one court removed from Congress.
A contract cannot force a woman to have a medical procedure against her will – no lawyer disputes that.
But intended parents don't need to force her when they can just bankrupt her instead, then get a court to write her out of her own child's life once she wins the argument that mattered.
West isn't asking the Supreme Court to decide who Gabriel's parents are, or to tell his doctors how to treat him.
She's asking for a pause – just enough time to get back into the Texas case before it's decided without her.
If Kagan says no, West's lawyers warn any later victory could arrive too late to mean anything for the child.
Right now, Gabriel is recovering from the first of three planned heart surgeries, after a rocky stretch that put him back on a breathing tube – and the woman who fought to give him that chance still isn't allowed through the door.
Sources:
- Stepheny Price, Jasmine Baehr, Shannon Bream and Bill Mears, "Surrogate who refused abortion takes fight to Supreme Court as baby's life hangs in balance," Fox News, September 9, 2026.
- The Federalist Staff, report on Gabriel's HLHS diagnosis and survival data, The Federalist, August 2026.
- Rep. Andy Ogles, press release on the Preventing Forced Abortions Act of 2026, July 23, 2026.
