Surrogate Takes Custody Fight Over Sick Baby to US Supreme Court

A surrogate who declined the intended parents' request for an abortion has petitioned the US Supreme Court to step into a custody dispute over a four-week-old boy born with a serious heart defect, escalating a case that has drawn backing from Republican officeholders and anti-abortion groups.

McKenna West, who lives in Alaska, filed an emergency order on Wednesday. She travelled to Dallas to give birth in August, in a state where most abortions are banned.

At the centre of the dispute is the infant West calls Gabriel and the California couple, Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar, call Rumi. The boy was born on August 12 with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a life-threatening condition that restricts normal blood flow to the heart, and underwent surgery shortly after birth. The couple's attorney said in August that the newborn was in critical condition and appeared to be suffering potential complications.

West is asking the Supreme Court to halt a California court order that recognises Ahmed and Gilkar as the child's parents. She is seeking final custody or conservatorship, arguing the couple will not secure life-saving care — pointing to their request for an abortion at 23 weeks. She believes they intend to place the baby in hospice care in California instead of allowing surgery that could save his life, and says they have told her they will provide no updates on his condition.

According to the filing, West lost her plea in Texas to win conservatorship, and the Texas court gave full credit to the California judgment on September 2. The document argues that West should be recognised as the mother under Texas law, and that the California judgment has left her dismissed with prejudice from the Texas proceedings and denied any information about or control over the medically fragile child.

Ahmed and Gilkar have not responded to the Supreme Court filing. They have previously said West violated the surrogacy contract and obtained a restraining order barring her from seeing or holding the child. At a hearing in Dallas on August 25, Gilkar described West as unstable and said she was trying to take their baby away. "He's our child," Gilkar said, wiping away tears.

Both sides were publicly silent after that hearing and the case file was sealed.

Surrogacy is not regulated at the federal level, leaving each state to apply its own laws and creating room for gaps in interpretation. The Supreme Court is not obliged to hear the case.

Without treatment, hypoplastic left heart syndrome can cause death within days or weeks. Surgical repairs are not necessarily cures, and further operations or a heart transplant may be required, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.