An Alaska surrogate who gave birth to a child with a rare heart defect in Texas asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in the multistate legal battle over who has parentage and custody rights over the boy.
Anchorage nurse McKenna West asked the high court to pause a California court order from last month ruling the child’s genetic parents — Los Angeles couple Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed — have legal parental authority, and West does not, according to a petition filed with the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday. West fled to Texas in July to give birth to the child after his genetic parents asked her to have an abortion.
"The California courts stripped away (West’s) rights to the child she carried for 37 weeks as she fought to save his life from those who sought him dead," West's attorneys wrote in the petition.
West’s request for a pause comes after Dallas judge Ashley Wysocki dismissed West’s bid for custody over the child earlier this month, upholding the California court’s order. Wysocki kept in place a temporary restraining order barring West from seeing the child after a hearing Aug. 25 pending a final ruling.
Wysocki also ordered the court records in the Dallas case to be sealed from public view after a request from the court-appointed attorney for the child.
Gilkar and Ahmed named the child Rumi, but West and her legal team refer to the newborn as Baby Gabriel. As of Aug. 25, the newborn was in the hospital in critical condition awaiting further treatment after he received open heart surgery to treat his hypoplastic left heart syndrome.
West says the baby could be taken back to California for hospice care around Sept. 17, according to the petition.
“Without a stay, (Gilkar and Ahmed) may halt life-saving care for Baby G. before this Court can even consider a petition" to review the case, West's attorneys wrote. "The resulting harm cannot be redressed on later review if Baby G. does not live to see it.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
