McKenna West, an Alaska nurse, agreed in 2025 to be a gestational surrogate for Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar, a Los Angeles couple. About 20 weeks in, doctors diagnosed the fetus with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a severe defect requiring a series of high-risk open-heart surgeries. Ahmed and Gilkar asked West to terminate the pregnancy under a contract clause; West refused and moved to Texas to give birth instead. West gave birth to him August 12, 2026, and he had his first heart surgery soon after. Courts in Alaska and California have already ruled Ahmed and Gilkar the boy's legal parents, and a Dallas judge dismissed West's custody bid on September 2. On September 9, West's attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to pause the California ruling. Justice Elena Kagan has ordered the other side to respond by September 18.

1. West Fought To Keep Him Alive. She Says She Deserves A Say In What Happens Next. (McKenna West, backed by Alliance Defending Freedom and First & Fourteenth PLLC)

West says the people who wanted to end the pregnancy shouldn't have unchecked control over the baby's medical care now.

She won't let them shut her out now. West carried him against the couple's wishes, and she told the anti-abortion group Live Action that ending the pregnancy after the diagnosis "was selfish," describing the pressure to abort as "a horrible, trapped feeling."

The risk to him isn't over, her filing argues. West's attorneys wrote that "without a stay, [Gilkar and Ahmed] may halt life-saving care for Baby G. before this Court can even consider a petition," since the baby is still in the middle of a multi-surgery treatment course.

The lower courts erased her entirely, she says. Her filing argues "the California courts stripped away [her] rights to the child she carried for 37 weeks as she fought to save his life from those who sought him dead."

2. They Say The Parentage Question Is Already Settled. (Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar, via attorney Lee Budner)

Ahmed and Gilkar say they're the boy's legal parents under contract and court order, full stop, and West is relitigating a question that's already closed.

West is dragging their sick newborn through court after court, they say. At a Dallas hearing, Gilkar testified through tears that the baby is "the love of our lives" and accused West of making them "run from doctor to doctor, state to state" with him.

Their attorney says there was never a real dispute over parentage. Lee Budner said "there is not, and there has never been, any good faith controversy over who the parents of Rumi are."

They say they've done nothing but focus on his care. Budner said the couple spends "every day" at the child's side in the neonatal cardiac intensive care unit, "singularly focused... on caring for their baby through his devastating condition, following the advice and recommendations of his team of medical experts."

West signed this clause, then broke it. The surrogacy agreement included a clause under which West agreed to terminate the pregnancy at their written request if a doctor found a fetal abnormality.

3. The Court Probably Won't Take This. That Doesn't Mean The Underlying Problem Isn't Real. (Attorneys Marla Neufeld and Monica Mazzei, independent of the case)

Outside legal experts think West's odds at the Supreme Court are low, but say the case exposes a real gap: there's no federal law governing surrogacy.

The Court probably won't grant this stay. Reproductive law attorney Marla Neufeld, who isn't involved in the case, said "emergency relief is usually extraordinarily difficult to obtain and the Supreme Court doesn't usually get involved in family disputes."

Every surrogacy contract needs to plan for this. Family law attorney Monica Mazzei said intended parents "have to understand that even if your contract says that, if the surrogate doesn't want to do that, you have to be prepared for that."

Surrogacy law is a state-by-state patchwork, and that's the deeper problem. There's no federal surrogacy statute, which is part of why the same facts produced different outcomes in Alaska, California, and Texas courts before this even reached Washington.

Where This Lands

West says she saved this baby's life and wants a say in the surgeries still ahead of him. Ahmed and Gilkar say courts in two other states already settled the parentage question, and West is using the courts to keep fighting a case she's already lost. Outside lawyers doubt the Supreme Court takes the case at all, but they agree the fight points at a real hole in the law: nothing at the federal level governs what happens when a surrogate and the intended parents disagree this badly. A Dallas judge has already dismissed West's Texas custody claim. Kagan's response deadline is September 18, and until the Court rules on the stay, Ahmed and Gilkar keep legal custody.

Sources