KAGAN DECLINED SURROGATE MCKENNA WEST’S SUPREME COURT BID
Surrogate McKenna West lost her emergency U.S. Supreme Court bid in a custody fight over a Dallas-born baby with a heart condition.
The baby boy was born in Dallas on August 12, 2026. West, who is from Alaska, carried him for Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed, a California couple. Lawyers for the couple and for West confirmed the birth to The Texas Tribune.
“Our clients’ child was born earlier this morning and he is now receiving medical care provided by a team of pediatric experts,” Lee Budner, an attorney for Gilkar and Ahmed, said in a statement.
Gilkar and Ahmed were at the hospital with the child, their attorney said. West did not have access to the baby, her attorney said on August 12.
The parents call the boy Rumi. West and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton call him Gabriel.
How the fight started
The child was diagnosed at 20 weeks’ gestation with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a condition in which the left side of the heart is underdeveloped.
West said the biological parents tried to force her to terminate the pregnancy. Gilkar and Ahmed denied that and said she initially agreed to it.
West’s attorney, Lincoln Wilson, described her feelings this way: “She described it as fear because basically she was going to be asked to do something to the child that she carried that was fundamentally offensive to her, and she couldn’t imagine ending the life of the child that she carried inside her.”
The couple’s Alaska court filing told a different story. It said they decided to terminate after consulting medical providers and researching the condition’s risks and quality of life. It also said West made the first abortion appointment, then changed her mind, cut off contact and withdrew the medical releases that let the couple speak with providers.
Wilson said West’s brother supported her and suggested he could adopt the baby if she did not want to have an abortion. West also argued that Texas family law recognizes the person who gives birth as the child’s legal mother.
California courts had already gone the other way. A trial court there recognized Gilkar and Ahmed as the legal parents, and an appellate court rejected West’s request to stop that judgment from taking effect.
The couple’s attorneys said the pair had decided to continue the pregnancy to delivery and planned lifelong treatment in California with a Los Angeles cardiac team. They argued West’s move to Texas would take the child away from his parents and that team.
Paxton announced on August 11 that he was intervening on West’s behalf. He alleged the parents refused consent for life-saving surgery and planned to take the child to California before birth.
The same day, a Dallas judge ordered that the child receive life-saving treatment after birth and remain in Texas. In a separate order, the judge barred West from making medical decisions for the boy or representing herself as his mother.
Budner accused West and Paxton of turning a family tragedy into “political theater.”
What happened next
West and Gilkar testified at a Dallas hearing on August 25. The judge extended a temporary restraining order for 14 days, keeping West from seeing the child or making medical decisions for him while a ruling was pending. Gilkar described West as unstable and said she was trying to take the couple’s baby away, CNN reported.
A Texas court ruled against West’s request for sole conservatorship on September 2, details in her later appeal showed.
The Texas Supreme Court then cleared the way for the parents to take the child to California for care, rejecting West’s attempt to block the move. “Sustaining the life of the medically fragile child is the paramount concern in this time-sensitive matter,” the court wrote, KERA News reported.
The ruling also quoted the child’s Texas physician, who said the best way to preserve the boy’s life as long as possible was “an ICU-to-ICU transfer.”
West then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the California order recognizing Gilkar and Ahmed as the parents. The boy underwent surgery soon after birth, the Associated Press reported.
On September 22, Justice Elena Kagan declined to intervene.
“We are truly 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,” Adam Wolf, an attorney for Gilkar and Ahmed, said.
The denial was brief and did not explain its reasoning, OSV News reported.
The September 22 decision leaves in place the California ruling recognizing Gilkar and Ahmed as the child’s parents.
