The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that a baby at the center of a bitter surrogacy dispute can be taken out of the state by his biological parents, dealing another blow to surrogate mother McKenna West, who has fought for months to keep the infant in Dallas and ensure he receives heart surgery. West has now turned to the U.S. Supreme Court in a last-ditch effort to block the move.
The baby, known in court filings as Gabriel, was born on August 12 with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a life-threatening cardiac defect that typically requires surgery almost immediately after birth. West refused the biological parents' request to abort Gabriel after the diagnosis surfaced during a 20th-week anatomy scan. The dispute has since spiraled into a multi-state legal war spanning Texas, California, and now the nation's highest court.
West carried Gabriel under a surrogacy agreement with biological parents Nasheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed. When prenatal testing revealed the heart defect, the parents sought an abortion. West refused. That refusal cracked the arrangement wide open and set off competing claims over who holds decision-making authority for the child's medical care.
Both a California court and a Texas judge have upheld Gilkar and Ahmed's parental rights, ruling that West lacks legal standing to make decisions about Gabriel's treatment or custody. The Texas Tribune reported that the Texas Supreme Court's decision now permits the biological parents to remove Gabriel from the Dallas hospital where he has been receiving care.
West has sought conservatorship of the baby, arguing that the biological parents will not ensure Gabriel receives the surgery he needs to survive. The biological parents have reportedly refused to consent to heart surgery and, according to West's legal team, have explored moving Gabriel to California to make treatment decisions under that state's laws.
Gilkar pushed back sharply against West's characterization of the dispute during a Dallas court hearing.
"She's making us run from doctor to doctor, state to state. With our baby, she's trying to take him."
That statement, reported by the New York Post, frames the conflict from the parents' perspective: they view West as an interloper who has no parental claim and is using the courts to override their authority over their own child.
West's attorneys see it differently. They contend that Gabriel's condition is treatable and that removing him from Texas, where courts have at least temporarily ensured access to medical intervention, could amount to a death sentence if surgery is withheld.
The case drew intervention from two powerful quarters before it reached the Supreme Court. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton obtained a court order allowing treatment for Gabriel after the biological parents refused to consent to heart surgery.
"My office utilized every tool at our disposal to protect life, and we will not back down in continuing to support baby Gabriel's well-being. Every child in our state deserves to be cared for and protected, and that's exactly what I'll fight for."
Paxton's office treated the matter as a child welfare issue under Texas law, sidestepping the surrogacy custody question to focus on whether a critically ill infant could be denied available medical treatment.
The Trump administration's Department of Health and Human Services also weighed in. The HHS Office for Civil Rights sent letters to Children's Medical Center of Dallas and UT Southwestern Medical Center, as Breitbart reported, outlining federal disability civil rights obligations regarding treatment decisions for the infant.
The HHS letters stated that federal law "prohibits withholding medical treatment based on a person's disability, including based on judgments that the life of someone with a disability has less value or that the individual would impose a burden on others." That language put hospitals on notice that declining to treat Gabriel could trigger federal civil rights enforcement.
With the Texas Supreme Court ruling against her, West escalated to the U.S. Supreme Court. Her legal team, which includes attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom and First & Fourteenth PLLC, filed an emergency application seeking an administrative stay. The application was directed to Justice Elena Kagan, who handles emergency matters from the Ninth Circuit.
West's lawyers requested the stay by 1:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, warning that the biological parents could move Gabriel out of Texas as soon as Thursday. Her attorneys argued in the filing that "relief was urgently needed."
The core constitutional argument centers on due process. West's application contends that California courts violated federal due process protections by treating her jurisdictional objections as a general appearance. In plain terms, the California court ruled that by showing up to contest whether California even had authority over the case, West effectively submitted to that court's jurisdiction. Her lawyers call that a constitutional trap: argue you don't belong in the courtroom, and the court treats your argument as proof that you do.
Fox News reported that West fears Gabriel could be moved to California for hospice care rather than surgery, cutting her out of any role in medical decisions before the Supreme Court can act.
Several critical questions remain open. Investigators and courts have not publicly addressed whether the biological parents intend to pursue surgery for Gabriel in another state or whether their plan involves palliative care only. The distinction matters enormously: hypoplastic left heart syndrome is described as treatable, but treatment requires a series of complex open-heart surgeries, and outcomes vary.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether federal disability protections would follow Gabriel across state lines if he leaves Texas. The HHS letters targeted Dallas-area hospitals. Whether those obligations attach to California providers under the same theory has not been tested in this case.
Courts will also need to determine whether West has any recognized legal interest in Gabriel's welfare that survives the termination of her role as surrogate. Every court to rule so far has said no. The Supreme Court has not signaled whether it will take up the emergency application or let the lower rulings stand.
The case sits at the intersection of surrogacy law, parental rights, disability rights, and federalism. Texas law gave Paxton a foothold to intervene on Gabriel's behalf. California law gave the biological parents a forum that recognized their authority. Federal disability law gave HHS a basis to pressure hospitals. And the surrogacy contract, which once governed the relationship between West and the parents, has become almost irrelevant to the legal questions now in play.
West's position rests on a simple moral claim wrapped in complex procedure: a child who can be saved should not be left to die. The biological parents' position rests on an equally fundamental legal principle: parents, not surrogates, decide what happens to their children.
The Supreme Court may never reach the merits. Emergency applications of this kind are often denied without comment. If the Court declines to intervene, Gabriel could leave Texas within days, and the legal fight would likely follow him to whatever jurisdiction his parents choose.
When a baby's life hangs on which state line he crosses, something in the system has failed. Whether it is the law, the institutions, or the people involved, the answer matters less than the fact that a child with a treatable condition still has not received surgery five weeks after birth.
