Inside surrogate McKenna Wests quixotic quest to keep the baby she delivered despite biological parents wishes
She may have kept the pregnancy — but she won’t be keeping the baby.The surrogate who crossed state lines to give birth to a baby boy against his biological parents’ wishes that she terminate the pregnancy has virtually no legal claim to the child, a reproductive law attorney told The Post.“I don’t see any reason why these biological parents wouldn’t still be the legal parents of this child,” Marla Neufeld, a Florida-based reproductive lawyer and host of “The Surrogacy Space” podcast, said of the newborn delivered by surrogate McKenna West in Dallas Wednesday. Less than 24 hours after his birth, the boy — whom West named Gabriel — was placed in the custody of his biological parents, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed.The Los Angeles couple had asked West, an Alaskan nurse, to terminate the pregnancy after the baby was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), a severe but treatable heart condition, at 20 weeks.A clause in their surrogate agreement said that if an “anomaly” were found, they could move to abort the pregnancy.West, a single mom of two, instead bolted to Texas, where she would be recognized as the birth mother under state law. While the terms of a surrogacy agreement would not have given Gilkar and Ahmed the power to force West to have an abortion, “that’s a totally separate issue from their parental rights,” according to Neufeld. “At the end of the day … the surrogate has decision-making authority for her body,” Neufeld said.
“There’s no judge that’s gonna make her have an abortion or stop her.”West initially agreed to terminate the pregnancy, Gilkar and Ahmed have claimed in court papers.But she changed her mind — saying the couple tried to force her to have an abortion, which they have denied, the Texas Tribune reported.
The couple ultimately decided to see through the pregnancy to delivery — opting to name the boy Rumi and have West deliver in California, where he’d receive lifelong ...