Image Source: McKenna West / Facebook
The commissioning parents of a baby born with a serious heart condition are reportedly suing surrogate mother McKenna West for more than $100,000 after she refused their request to abort him.
Nasheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed filed a countersuit against West, a 28-year-old nurse from Alaska, weeks before she gave birth in Texas on 12 August.
West had agreed to carry the couple’s child for $60,000 under a surrogacy contract containing an abortion clause in the event of a foetal abnormality.
At around 20 weeks, the baby was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a rare congenital condition in which the left side of the heart is severely underdeveloped.
The commissioning parents requested an abortion, but West refused and began fighting to ensure the child received treatment after birth.
She travelled to Texas, where she hoped to establish parental rights and secure potentially life-saving surgery for the child she calls Gabriel. Gilkar and Ahmed call their son Rumi.
Before his birth, a Texas court prevented anyone from withholding treatment deemed medically necessary by his doctors and appointed a legal guardian to protect his interests.
The baby has since undergone his first operation. His commissioning parents have said that he is now being “loved and cared for following surgery.”
However, their legal action against the woman who carried him to birth continues.
Gilkar and Ahmed are reportedly seeking more than $100,000 for West’s alleged breach of their agreement, alongside unspecified damages for what their lawsuit calls “malicious, outrageous conduct”. They now deny threatening to force West to undergo an abortion.
Their decision to continue pursuing substantial damages suggests considerable bitterness remains over West’s refusal to abort the baby who is now alive and receiving treatment, though they claim to love him.
There is an additional painful dimension to the case. Despite carrying Gabriel throughout pregnancy and fighting to secure his medical treatment, West has reportedly been prohibited from having contact with him following his birth.
She is continuing her attempt to establish legal parentage in Texas, while the commissioning parents maintain that the baby is legally their child.
“Every life matters,” West said. “No woman should be forced to end the life of the baby she is carrying, including me … Baby Gabriel should receive a chance at life.”
Gabriel has been renamed “Rumi” by Gilkar and Ahmed.
Peter Kearney, SPUC’s Communications Manager, said: “This story goes from bad to worse every day. The surrogacy arrangement McKenna West was duped into by modern culture is to blame. She was deceived into thinking her decision was altruistic when she was really being used as an incubator by a rich couple who are now punishing her for holding basic motherly instincts towards Gabriel.
“As much as we hope the legal teams around McKenna can quash this lawsuit and that she gains custody of the child she has sacrificed so much to defend, we especially hope that the reaction to this evermore terrible story will turn public opinion against surrogacy and end the barbarism of it in the West once and for all.”
