Alaska surrogate mom asks US Supreme Court to intervene in battle over critically ill baby

Photo credit: Live Action

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Sept. 11, 2026 — An Alaska woman who refused to abort a baby diagnosed with a serious but treatable heart defect has asked the US Supreme Court to intervene in an extraordinary legal battle spanning Alaska, California and Texas.

McKenna West, a 28-year-old cardiac nurse from Anchorage, filed an emergency application Wednesday asking the court to temporarily block a California judgment recognizing Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed as the child’s legal parents.

West served as a gestational surrogate for the California couple under a contract that reportedly paid her $60,000 and contained a provision permitting termination of the pregnancy if the developing baby was found to have significant abnormalities.

At approximately 20 weeks, an ultrasound showed that the baby had hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a rare congenital condition in which the left side of the heart is severely underdeveloped and cannot adequately pump blood to the body.

Gilkar and Ahmed decided to terminate the pregnancy after consulting their medical providers. West initially scheduled appointments but changed her mind after feeling the baby move and learning that surgical treatment was available.

West later traveled from Alaska to Dallas, where the baby boy was born Aug. 12. West calls him Gabriel, while the intended parents call him Rumi.

The baby underwent open-heart surgery within days of his birth and has remained in critical condition. Children with this condition typically require a series of operations beginning shortly after birth. The first is called the Norwood procedure, followed by additional surgeries as the child grows.

Without medical intervention, HLHS is usually fatal within the first days or weeks of life. The operations do not create a normal heart, however, and some children eventually require a heart transplant, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The dispute intensified before the birth when Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton intervened and supported an emergency order requiring hospitals to provide medically necessary, life-saving treatment and prohibiting efforts to delay or obstruct that care. Texas law generally recognizes the woman who gives birth as the child’s mother unless another valid parentage determination controls.

West says she was permitted only about one minute with the baby after his birth before he was taken away. A court order has since barred her from seeing, holding or receiving medical information about him.

A California court had already entered a parentage judgment naming Gilkar and Ahmed as the legal parents. On Sept. 2, a Texas judge agreed and dismissed West from the Texas proceedings.

That decision means West has no legal standing to participate in decisions involving the baby’s treatment or to defend the Texas order requiring life-saving care, her attorneys contend.

“The stakes of the decisions below are enormous,” her Supreme Court application states. Her lawyers argue that the California judgment has left West with no information about or authority over the medically fragile child.

West alleges she was not properly served before the California parentage judgment was entered, which raises a due-process question that she wants an opportunity to litigate.

Her attorneys contend that the intended parents may move the baby to California for hospice care rather than continue the staged surgical treatment. The filing points to approximately Sept. 17 as a possible transfer date.

Gilkar and Ahmed have said they consented to the child’s first surgery and would consider additional treatment if physicians determine he is medically eligible. They have also challenged portions of the Texas treatment order.

The couple maintains that West is attempting to take their child after agreeing to carry him on their behalf. During an Aug. 25 hearing in Dallas, Gilkar tearfully told the court, “He’s our child.”

Gilkar and Ahmed have also countersued West for more than $100,000, alleging she breached the surrogacy contract by refusing the requested abortion and interfering with their parental rights.

West says she is not seeking custody for its own sake. She has stated that she would drop her custody or conservatorship claims if a court determines that Gilkar and Ahmed are committed to providing the baby with medically appropriate, life-saving care.

The emergency application does not ask the Supreme Court to make a final parentage determination or order a particular medical treatment, but rather that West can regain legal standing.

The filing was directed to Justice Elena Kagan, a pro-abortion justice who handles emergency matters arising from the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals. Kagan had not ruled as of Friday morning, and the Supreme Court is not required to take the case.