The baby boy involved in a multistate surrogacy battle over his life-threatening heart defect had emergency surgery Monday, days after he was born in a Texas hospital.
McKenna West, the surrogate who birthed the baby last Wednesday, has said she fled from Alaska to Texas to have the child after his biological parents in California tried to force her to have an abortion due to his severe congenital heart condition.
West refused to have the abortion, which she was asked to have when the baby was diagnosed at around 20 weeks pregnant. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton swiftly became involved when he asked a state court to order doctors to perform lifesaving surgery on the child in Dallas County amid allegations that the biological parents might refuse such care. The biological parents, Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar, have denied such allegations as “political theater” and revealed this week that the child had complex open-heart surgery for hypoplastic left heart syndrome.
“Rumi is now recuperating under the loving care of his parents and his heroic team of doctors, nurses, and medical staff,” said attorney Lee Budner, who represents the biological parents. “This is the last update on Rumi’s health that his family intends to share. … His condition remains critical and complex, and his family seeks privacy in caring for their son on his long road to recovery.”
The surrogate named the baby boy Gabriel. Gilkar and Ahmed named him Rumi. The Norwood procedure the infant underwent is the first of three surgeries required in the first few years of life for his condition, Budner said.
The biological parents said in court documents filed in Alaska that when they hired West to be their surrogate, she was “clear and knowing in her intention to abide by” the parents’ request for an abortion if medical tests revealed a fetal abnormality. The biological parents have said they would have respected West’s refusal to go through with the abortion and have denied allegations that they would have sought to deny the newborn medical care.
The couple now has custody of the child. However, Budner said Monday that West is continuing “baseless” claims for custody, which he alleged are “in violation of multiple court orders out of both Alaska and California.”
West’s lawyer, Lincoln Wilson, said the surrogate was not allowed any contact with the child after his birth, and pledged to continue efforts to gain custody of the baby.
“We are working on challenging those orders of parentage because we think that Texas law makes a woman who gives birth [to] a child, the mother of the child,” the surrogate’s attorney told CBS News last week.
The battle has played out in multiple courts, with judges offering different opinions on who should have parental rights, highlighting the legal complications surrogacy can create.
The biological parents asked a California court to order West to give birth there. But an Alaska court ruled that the surrogate could make her own medical decisions.
After traveling to Texas, West asked a Dallas court to recognize her parental rights as the birth mother. The court issued an order requiring lifesaving care to be provided once the baby was born but also issued a restraining order that awarded the biological parents authority over decisions about his medical care. The Dallas judge’s order prevented West from representing herself as the child’s mother.
The couple and West were scheduled to appear in a Dallas family court on Aug. 25.
The biological parents say West initially agreed to have the abortion but later changed her mind. West’s lawyer said that the surrogate decided to carry the baby to term after her brother guided her through the dispute and suggested he could adopt the baby.
“Basically she was going to be asked to do something to the child that she carried that was fundamentally offensive to her, and she couldn’t imagine ending the life of the child that she carried inside her,” Wilson told the Texas Tribune.