Texas Supreme Court Clears Surrogate-Born Baby With Heart Defect to Move to California Over Surrogate's Objection

The Texas Supreme Court ruled Thursday, September 17, 2026, that a medically fragile month-old baby can leave Texas for a Los Angeles hospital, rejecting an effort by his surrogate, McKenna West, to keep him in the state. The order clears the way for biological parents Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed to move the infant for further treatment of hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a rare defect that restricts blood flow and typically requires multiple surgeries.

"Sustaining the life of the medically fragile child is the paramount concern in this time-sensitive matter," the court wrote, according to the Texas Tribune and KSAT 12. The justices cited testimony from the baby's Dallas physician describing an ICU-to-ICU transfer as time-sensitive and "ripe now."

How the case got here

Gilkar and Ahmed, who live in Los Angeles, hired West, an Alaska cardiac nurse, as a gestational surrogate. In April 2026, a 20-week scan detected the fetus's heart defect. Citing a clause in the surrogacy contract, the couple asked West to terminate the pregnancy, according to the Epoch Times, which reported West's attorneys say the contract threatened her with penalties exceeding $250,000 if she refused.

West says she initially agreed, then changed her mind. She told the outlet Live Action she couldn't "live with herself" ending the pregnancy after feeling the baby move. She says she offered to release the couple from further financial obligation and either raise the child herself or arrange an adoption. Gilkar and Ahmed's attorneys, in filings cited by the Guardian, say there is "simply no truth whatsoever" to claims they planned to withhold treatment, and that West is the one who blindsided them with a custody fight after initially agreeing to the abortion.

West traveled to Texas, where abortion is banned, and gave birth in Dallas on August 12. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton intervened before the birth to ensure the newborn would receive medical care, a move that raised the case's national profile. The baby, named Rumi by his biological parents and called Gabriel by West, has already undergone at least one heart surgery, the Daily Wire reported.

Competing custody rulings

While West pursued conservatorship in Texas and Alaska courts, Gilkar and Ahmed filed a parentage action in Los Angeles Superior Court. That court ruled July 27 that the couple are the child's legal parents and denied West's custody claims. West's lawyers contested jurisdiction, pointing to a forum-selection clause in the surrogacy contract requiring disputes to be resolved in Alaska, according to Fox News. On September 2, a Texas court granted full faith and credit to the California judgment.

West's attorneys, from Alliance Defending Freedom and First & Fourteenth PLLC, then took the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court on September 9, asking Justice Elena Kagan, who handles emergency matters from the Ninth Circuit, to stay the California ruling. Their filing argued the California court violated federal due process by treating West's jurisdictional objection as consent to its authority, and warned the baby could be moved to California for hospice care "around September 17, if not sooner."

Gilkar and Ahmed's attorneys called that claim baseless. Their lawyers told the Dallas court that hospice is not part of the treatment plan and that the couple have "followed the recommendations of the doctors to a T," according to a brief filed by guardian ad litem Susan Duesler, the court-appointed representative for the baby's interests. Duesler's brief said the child's doctors have "unequivocally, no" concerns about the parents' medical decision-making and recommend his remaining surgeries happen in Los Angeles, warning that delay would make treatment "much more complicated."

West's due-process argument deserves a fair hearing on its own terms. A state court proceeding that treats a jurisdictional objection as a waiver of the right to contest custody is a real legal question, not a frivolous one, and it's the crux of what she's asking the Supreme Court to review. But on the immediate question the Texas Supreme Court had to decide, whether the baby should be transferred now, the court found the medical testimony from the treating physician and the guardian ad litem uncontroverted, and neither disputed that a Los Angeles hospital is where his doctors want him.

As of Thursday's ruling, Kagan has not acted on West's emergency application, and it remains unresolved whether the Supreme Court will take up her broader due-process claim. Separately, Rep. Andy Ogles has introduced federal legislation aimed at barring surrogacy contracts from compelling abortion, a response Ogles has tied directly to West's case. Gilkar told a Dallas court in August that Rumi is "the love of our lives" who is "suffering a lot." West has not commented publicly since Thursday's ruling, and her attorneys did not respond to a request for comment reported by the Guardian.