Kagan Rejects Surrogate's Appeal Over Heart-Defect Baby, Leaving California Custody Order Intact
Updated
Updated · The Washington Post · Sep 22
Kagan Rejects Surrogate's Appeal Over Heart-Defect Baby, Leaving California Custody Order Intact
3 articles · Updated · The Washington Post · Sep 22
Summary
Justice Elena Kagan refused to pause a California order giving Los Angeles couple Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar parental authority over the baby born by surrogate McKenna West.
The emergency appeal followed West's repeated losses in state court after she sought to retain some control over medical decisions for the medically fragile child.
At about 20 weeks, the fetus was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome; Ahmed and Gilkar wanted an abortion under the surrogacy contract, but West instead went from Alaska to Texas and gave birth in August.
West argues the California ruling violated her 14th Amendment due-process rights and says Texas law would ordinarily treat the birth mother as the child's mother, while the biological parents' lawyer says there has never been a real dispute over parentage.
The case has sprawled across California, Texas and Alaska since spring, turning a technical jurisdiction fight into a broader flashpoint over abortion, surrogacy and parental rights.