Surrogate who refused abortion over heart defect takes custody battle to US Supreme Court
A surrogate who refused an abortion request from the parents who hired her to have their baby has asked the US Supreme Court to intervene in the dispute over who should have custody of the baby.
A woman named McKenna West refused an abortion request from a couple seeking to have a child. The prospective parents, Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar, wanted West to terminate the pregnancy because their unborn baby had a severe heart defect. Despite West's refusal, the couple took West to Texas, where she gave birth to the baby boy with hypoplastic left heart syndrome.
After the birth, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton intervened in the case and obtained an emergency court order to ensure the child received medical care in the state. West remained committed to seeking custody of the infant, believing that the biological parents would not provide him with the necessary medical attention due to their desire to abort the child once its life-threatening condition was discovered.
The California parents argued that West had taken the baby without their consent and restricted their access to medical information. A court in California had already granted them parental rights, while a Texas court issued a restraining order preventing West from seeing the baby. West's lawyers suggested that if the Supreme Court did not intervene, she would lose access to crucial information regarding the child's medical condition, potentially placing him in hospice care.
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