Supreme Court declines to intervene in custody dispute between California couple and surrogate who refused to abort baby

The U.S. Supreme Court decided Sept. 22 not to stop a California court from recognizing a California couple as the legal parents of an infant carried by surrogate mother McKenna West, who refused their request to abort the child after he was diagnosed with a serious yet treatable heart defect.

Justice Elena Kagan, who handles emergency matters arising from the 9th Circuit, denied the application without explanation and without referral to the full court. The decision leaves in place lower-court orders recognizing Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed as the boy’s parents. 

West, an Alaska nurse, entered a surrogacy agreement with the couple in 2025. At about 20 weeks of pregnancy, doctors diagnosed the unborn baby with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a congenital heart defect in which the left side of the heart is severely underdeveloped, as Zeale News previously reported. The condition is life-threatening and typically requires a series of surgeries beginning shortly after birth.

After receiving the diagnosis, Gilkar and Ahmed asked West to get an abortion, but West refused, saying that the boy’s life “doesn’t have a price tag on it.” She later traveled to Texas, where she gave birth to the boy Aug. 12 in Dallas. 

>> Baby boy born in Texas after surrogate mother refused intended parents’ request to abort him <<

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton intervened in the case the day before the boy’s birth and secured an emergency court order requiring lifesaving treatment for the boy amid a separate court order preventing West from making medical decisions for the infant, as Zeale News reported.

The boy, whom the couple calls Rumi and whom West has referred to as Gabriel, underwent the first of several expected heart surgeries shortly after birth.

West subsequently sought custody, arguing that the couple’s earlier abortion request gave her reason to question whether they would continue pursuing lifesaving treatment. Her attorneys asked the Supreme Court to stay the California parentage judgment while she prepared a petition asking the justices to review the case. 

“The stakes of the decisions below are enormous,” West’s attorneys wrote in court documents, arguing that the California judgment had caused Texas courts to dismiss West from the proceedings and deny her information about the medically fragile child. 

The couple disputed West’s claims that they might discontinue the boy’s treatment or place him in hospice care. Their attorneys told the Supreme Court that Gilkar and Ahmed had remained with their son in the pediatric intensive care unit and that he was receiving critical medical care with their consent.

In a Sept. 22 statement cited by The Texas Tribune, Adam Wolf, an attorney for Gilkar and Ahmed, said the couple is “grateful that Rumi can continue receiving the treatment he needs to survive, and that he will not be stripped away from what has been described by doctors as the excellent care of his parents.” 

Wolf also argued that West’s legal fight “sought to undermine Rumi’s parents’ right to provide him with the care he needs.” 

West’s attorney, Lincoln Davis Wilson, said she was disappointed by Kagan’s decision but pleased that her legal fight had prompted the biological parents to commit publicly to lifesaving care for their baby.

“That’s what McKenna has been fighting for from day one,” Wilson said, according to the Tribune.

Wilson disputed the parents’ claim that they have been the primary ones working to keep Rumi alive. 

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Wilson said. “After his birth, they remain under a court order to continue providing that care. Every life-saving decision has been made for them, not by them.”

The case has attracted national attention because it involves surrogacy disputes, pro-life laws, and parental rights across multiple states. As Zeale News previously reported, surrogacy law varies by state, and the U.S. has no comprehensive federal law regulating the practice. 

>> Tennessee representative announces bill to ban forced abortions in surrogacy contracts <<