27 Sep SCOTUS stays out of thorny surrogacy fight

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to wade into the emergency appeal brought by an Alaska surrogate who demanded to keep a California couple’s critically ill newborn.

McKenna West asked the high court to invalidate a California court order giving Omar Ahmed and Nausheen Gilkar parental rights over baby Rumi, who has hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a life-threatening congenital heart condition. Justice Elena Kagen declined to intervene without comment, leaving the lower court order in place.

West, who called the newborn Gabriel, cited disagreements with Ahmed and Gilkar over Rumi’s medical care as a justification for her custody fight.

The multistate custody fight kicked off after a 20-week anatomy scan revealed the fetus’ heart condition. Ahmed and Gilkar opted to terminate the pregnancy, but West refused and fled to Texas where abortions are banned.

With the help of anti-abortion activists and the Texas attorney general, West gave birth to Rumi in August. The hospital was ordered to perform the first required surgery.

The Texas attorney general has since withdrawn from the proceedings, however, and a Lone Star State court dismissed West from the custody dispute under the California court’s parentage order.

West urged the Supreme Court to block the order, claiming Ahmed and Gilkar have refused to give her updates on Rumi’s condition.

“The California courts stripped away M.W.’s rights to the child she carried for 37 weeks as she fought to save his life from those who sought him dead,” Alliance for Defending Freedom attorneys representing West wrote in an emergency application before the high court.

The conservative advocacy group has backed high-profile anti-abortion cases, including Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 Supreme Court case that overturned Roe v. Wade.

West submitted complex jurisdictional claims in her favor, arguing the litigation should have begun in Alaska, not California.

Before the California couple could respond to the application, West filed a subsequent emergency brief urging the Supreme Court to act quickly to prevent Rumi from being removed from a Texas hospital.

Rumi’s parents praised the high court’s decision to reject West’s petition.

“We are grateful that Rumi can continue receiving the treatment he needs to survive, and that he will not be stripped away from his parents, who are ensuring their child receives top-notch medical care,” attorney Adam Wolf, who represents the California couple, said in response to the denial.

“Ms. West’s legal filings across three states, numerous courts of appeals, and now the U.S. Supreme Court have sought to undermine Rumi’s parents’ right to provide him with the care he needs. Those efforts have been rejected by every single court,” the Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise partner said.

Attorneys representing the Alaskan surrogate did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision.

Source: Courthouse News Service September 22, 2026