McKenna West was pregnant with someone else's baby when they demanded she abort him.
She said no, and the biological parents later sued her for delivering him alive.
Texas judges just decided who gets to make his medical decisions next.
McKenna West Was Threatened With a Quarter Million Dollars to Abort Baby Gabriel
Doctors diagnosed the baby in April, while he was still in the womb, with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a defect that leaves the heart's main pumping chamber too underdeveloped to move blood the way it should.
West, an Alaska surrogate carrying the child for California couple Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed, says the couple asked her to end the pregnancy once they learned of the diagnosis.
Gilkar and Ahmed turned to surrogacy after Gilkar endured eight unsuccessful rounds of IVF and a hysterectomy.
She refused.
Her attorneys say she was then warned that keeping the baby could expose her to more than a quarter million dollars in penalties.
"The threats eventually became real," West wrote.
"But no threat or amount of money could sway my conviction that this baby had a real chance at a full life, and I could not participate in killing him and depriving him of that opportunity."
After she refused, the couple cut off her payments and later sued her for more than $100,000 simply for delivering the baby rather than aborting him.
West told the surrogacy agency she could not abort "this precious baby" once she felt him move.
She offered to raise the child herself or arrange an adoption, and to release the couple from every remaining financial obligation.
West Described in Court Exactly What the Abortion Would Have Looked Like
In a Dallas courtroom, West described the procedure she refused to undergo.
"It would have been a two-day procedure," she said through tears.
"They would have injected his heart with a solution that would stop it."
She said his body would have been removed two days later.
"It was terrifying," West said.
"I knew that I wanted to protect him and I knew he deserved to be protected," she testified.
West, a cardiac nurse and mother of two, said the standard repair is three staged surgeries beginning with the Norwood procedure, treatment she said "gives children a high chance of going on to live full lives."
"No woman should be forced to kill the baby inside her," she wrote.
"Most importantly, every child deserves a chance to live."
Texas Supreme Court Clears Baby Gabriel's Transfer to a Los Angeles Hospital for Heart Surgery
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton obtained an emergency order before the birth requiring the hospital to provide life-saving care and barring the child from leaving the state.
The baby, born August 12 in Dallas and named Rumi by his biological parents, underwent his first open-heart surgery, the Norwood procedure, on Aug. 17.
His condition later declined, and he was returned to a breathing tube.
West came to Texas after the birth and sought sole conservatorship so she could control his medical decisions.
On Sept. 18, the Texas Supreme Court sided with the parents, ruling that the baby could be transferred to a Los Angeles hospital for his remaining surgeries.
"Sustaining the life of the medically fragile child is the paramount concern in this time-sensitive matter," the court said.
The child's Texas physician warned that delaying the transfer would create "much more complicated treatment."
A court-appointed guardian testified the parents "have followed the recommendations of the doctors to a T."
Attorney Lee Budner, representing the parents, said West had been "conducting a publicity tour" while the parents were "quietly caring for their child."
West has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, and Justice Elena Kagan has received her emergency filing.
Gilkar and Ahmed have already won related custody fights in California, Alaska, and Texas.
Rep. Andy Ogles' Bill Would Stop Courts From Forcing Surrogates to Abort
Melissa Cook says she was pressured to "selectively reduce" the triplets she was carrying for another couple.
Crystal Kelley says she was offered extra money to abort a baby doctors said would need lifelong medical care.
Rep. Andy Ogles introduced the Preventing Forced Abortions Act to stop federal courts from enforcing surrogacy clauses that require a woman to abort against her will.
Concerned Women for America's Legislative Action Committee has endorsed the bill.
McKenna West refused to sign off on Baby Gabriel's death, and he survived because of it, no matter what it cost her.
Sources:
- Steven Ertelt, "Texas Supreme Court Rules Against McKenna West, Says Baby Can Leave State," LifeNews.com, Sep. 21, 2026.
- Jennifer Oliver O'Connell, "Surrogate Mother McKenna West Takes Her Petition to Save Baby Gabriel to the Supreme Court," RedState, Sep. 10, 2026.
- Kennedy Bolton, "Forced Abortions in Surrogacy Contracts," Concerned Women for America, Jul. 22, 2024.
- Texas Tribune, "Texas Supreme Court Rules Baby Delivered by Surrogate Can Leave Texas," Sep. 18, 2026.
