Attorneys for a California couple and the Alaska woman they hired as their surrogate are asking a Dallas court Tuesday to decide who can make decisions for a newborn baby boy with a heart defect.
A judge will decide after Tuesday's hearing whether to enforce a temporary restraining order preventing Alaska nurse McKenna West from seeing, holding, transporting or making decisions for the baby she birthed Aug. 12 in Dallas. His genetic parents, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed, say they named the boy Rumi, while West calls him Baby Gabriel.
The case poses a slew of legal and ethical questions concerning abortion and surrogacy in three states with vastly different laws on both issues.
Here's what to know about the case ahead of Tuesday’s hearing.
What did the surrogacy contract say?
Los Angeles couple Ahmed and Gilkar entered a surrogacy agreement with West — a nurse then living in Anchorage, Alaska — on Aug. 29, 2025. West agreed to give birth in her home state as part of the contract.
West also agreed to get an abortion in the case of a fetal abnormality if the intended parents requested she terminate the pregnancy, according to the surrogacy agreement, which was included in Dallas County court documents.
If West violated this part of the contract, Gilkar and Ahmed would no longer pay her for carrying the baby, West would have to pay them back, and she’d be liable for additional monetary damages.
“The Gestational Carrier agrees that she has carefully considered the issue of termination of the pregnancy, has discussed it with the psychologist in her psychological evaluation, and she is clear and knowing in her intention to abide by the request of the Intended Parents concerning the termination of the pregnancy,” the agreement states.
Texas law prohibits almost all abortions except when there are serious health or life risks to the patient. But in most cases, the surrogate mother is allowed to make her own choice about whether to terminate the pregnancy — she’d just have to face any potential financial consequences as a result of breaking the surrogacy contract, said Christine Andresen, a family attorney in Austin.
Despite existing concerns about the ethics of an abortion clause in a surrogacy agreement, Andresen warned against dictating what terms people should or shouldn’t include in those contracts.
“Adults get to make legal contracts, and if they want to put their body at some small risk to have a surrogacy, to carry a surrogacy, a compensated surrogacy, I think we should let women do that,” Andresen said.
During West’s 20-week fetal scan April 17, 2026, the unborn boy was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, or HLHS, according to court records. The condition occurs when the left side of the heart doesn’t form correctly during pregnancy and affects normal blood flow through the heart, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HLHS requires surgery soon after birth.
West alleges the husband and wife asked her to have an abortion upon learning about the child’s heart defect and refused to get the baby life-saving care should he be born.
In an Aug. 20 New York Post op-ed, West said the couple’s lawyer and her own former lawyer threatened her with six-figure penalties if she didn’t terminate the pregnancy.
A California court in June issued an order stating Gilkar and Ahmed are the child’s legal parents, not West, and West cannot make decisions on the child’s behalf.
On July 29, about 34 weeks into her pregnancy, West’s attorneys told Gilkar and Ahmed she had relocated to Dallas to deliver the baby. West moved with her own two children to Texas so the baby could receive the Norwood procedure, a heart surgery needed to treat his condition.
Gilkar and Ahmed deny they ever refused surgery for the child. They would determine the right course of treatment depending on the child’s condition after his birth and doctors’ evaluation of him, Ahmed wrote in a Dallas County district court filing Aug. 10.
“Our worst fear, which has been validated by her filing today,” Ahmed wrote, “is that she may try to keep our child from us after she gives birth to him.”
But according to Alaska court records, the couple did make the decision to terminate the pregnancy, CNN and the Associated Press reported. West initially agreed and made the first appointment.
While West said Gilkar and Ahmed pressured her into having an abortion, the couple said in court documents it was West who cut off communication after agreeing to terminate the pregnancy, CNN and the AP reported with information from court documents. Ahmed and Gilkar had already turned their attention to getting the baby treated in California.
Why did Texas get involved?
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton intervened in the case after it began in Dallas court. He asked a judge to issue an emergency order requiring medical professionals to provide the boy “stabilizing and life-sustaining” care upon his live birth. The attorney general argued the unborn child’s parents did not have the right to stand in the way of their child receiving life-saving treatment.
“Baby Gabriel deserves a chance at life, and I will not allow anyone to unlawfully deny him medically necessary care,” Paxton wrote in a press release. “My office will use every tool available to protect innocent lives and ensure that every child receives the care required under Texas law.”
That same day, Paxton also wrote a letter directing UT Southwestern Medical Center and Children’s Medical Center of Dallas to provide the necessary procedures to the baby upon his live birth. The court granted Paxton’s order.
The state’s involvement in the newborn’s medical care before its birth complicates medical professionals’ jobs, said Arthur Caplan, the professor emeritus of bioethics at the New York University School of Medicine.
“It borders on danger for any patient,” Caplan previously told KERA. “When the attorney general steps in and says, ‘this is the care that you're gonna get,’ it's almost overriding what the doctors may think.”
Paxton — the Republican currently running for one of Texas’ U.S. Senate seats — isn’t the only anti-abortion advocate helping West in her case.
The anti-abortion nonprofit Live Action paid for West to travel from Texas to Alaska, the Texas Tribune reported. The conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom is also representing West in court.
But despite West’s ties to the groups and Paxton, West denies any political motivations for her move to Texas.
“People have called this political theater,” West wrote in her New York Post op-ed. “It isn’t. This is about giving an innocent child a shot at the life he deserves.”
Paxton’s office withdrew from the case Wednesday after the baby received surgery.
Who decides the baby's future?
A Dallas County associate judge issued a temporary restraining order on Aug. 11 stating West was not allowed to make any medical decisions for the child, attempt to act as his mother or remove the child from the hospital. The order doesn’t stop West from making “decisions to safeguard her own health or the health of the pregnancy.”
West now argues she is the presumed mother of the child under Texas law. She alleges the order was wrongfully issued as Gilkar and Ahmed didn’t prove they would face injury, loss or damage if the order wasn’t granted, as required by law.
“(Gilkar and Ahmed’s) TRO request is a trojan horse using McKenna of her inherent parental rights to make imminent medical decisions as the child’s birth mother without an evidentiary hearing,” West’s attorneys said in an Aug. 14 motion.
West also argues the California judge didn’t have the authority to designate Ahmed and Gilkar as the child’s legal parents because, according to Texas law, legal parentage can only be decided after a child is born.
Texas law also states an order designating legal parents has to state the child’s name and date of birth, West argues. The California court’s order only identified the baby at the time as “Unborn Child Ahmed” who was due on or about Sept. 2, 2026. West calls the child “Baby Gabriel,” and his date of birth was Aug. 12, 2026.
Lastly, West argues the surrogacy agreement is invalid because the contract has to be validated in Texas in order to be enforced in Texas.
Caplan told KERA the lack of oversight and patchwork of legislation about surrogacy highlights the need for states and people seeking surrogacy to be clear about how the process should proceed — and who has the final say.
“When people follow this case and see that these arrangements can cross state lines,” Caplan said, “it's going to be important in their contracts between a couple who wants a baby and needs to hire a woman to carry the pregnancy to specify which jurisdiction is going to have priority.”
Additional reporting by KERA’s Abigail Ruhman.
Toluwani Osibamowo is KERA’s law and justice reporter. Got a tip? Email Toluwani at tosibamowo@kera.org.
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