Supreme Court Rejects Surrogate’s Custody Appeal

The Supreme Court declined to halt a California ruling recognizing Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar as the legal parents of a baby born to their surrogate, McKenna West, who had sought to retain a role in custody and medical decisions. West refused the couple’s request to terminate the pregnancy after doctors diagnosed the fetus with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, and she traveled from Alaska to Texas, where the boy was born on Aug. 12 and has undergone major heart surgery. West argued that the genetic parents might discontinue life-saving treatment, while Ahmed and Gilkar said they had consented to all recommended care and had no intention of placing the child in hospice. Separately, Texas courts cleared the medically fragile infant to be transferred from a Texas hospital to California, finding that doctors believed an ICU-to-ICU transfer was in his best interest and that delaying it could endanger his life. Justice Elena Kagan rejected West’s emergency appeal without explanation, leaving the broader dispute over surrogacy contracts, abortion, jurisdiction and parental rights to continue in lower courts.