Supreme Court stays out of custody case involving surrogate who refused abortion
The surrogate refused an abortion request from the parents after a scan showed the foetus had a severe heart defect.
Supreme Court declines to step into custody dispute involving surrogate who refused abortion
McKenna West, the surrogate, has sought custody of the child after giving birth against the couple’s wishes
The US Supreme Court has declined to get involved in a custody battle involving a surrogate who refused a request from the parents who hired her to abort their baby.
Justice Elena Kagan turned down an emergency appeal from McKenna West, who asked the court to pause an earlier ruling that gave parental rights to the California couple.
After a scan at 20 weeks showed the foetus had a severe heart defect, the parents asked West to terminate the pregnancy. Instead, West went to Texas, where nearly all abortions are illegal, and gave birth to the child.
The court’s action leaves in place an earlier order awarding custody to the parents.
West has been trying to win custody of the baby, who was born last month with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a defect in which the left side of the heart cannot pump enough blood to the body.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the condition often requires several surgeries, but those are not a cure. Infants with the condition can face lifelong complications.
West, who has received support from several Republican officials, travelled to Texas, where state Attorney General Ken Paxton stepped into the case and secured an emergency court order requiring that the boy receive medical care in the state. He underwent surgery shortly after birth.
In the Supreme Court filing, West said she rejected the parents’ requests, Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar, to have the abortion after learning about treatment options and wanting to keep “this precious baby”.
West argued that the biological parents should not have custody because she feared they would not provide the boy with the medical care he needs, since they had sought to abort the child after learning of the life-threatening condition.
At an earlier court hearing, Gilkar said the baby, whom they named Rumi, was “our child” and “the love of our lives,” according to the Associated Press. They said West went to Texas without telling them and cut off their access to medical information.
A California court had previously granted parental rights to Ahmed and Gilkar, while a Texas court issued a restraining order preventing West from seeing the baby.
Last month, a lawyer for the California couple said the child was in critical condition and appeared to be “suffering from potential complications”.
West said that without Supreme Court intervention, she would lose access to information about the child’s medical condition.
In the filing, West’s lawyers suggested that the California couple could place the child in hospice care.