On August 25, surrogate mother McKenna West squared off in Dallas County Court against the donor parents of Baby Gabriel/Rumi. Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed filed a restraining order against West, which prevents her from having contact with or making medical decisions for the child born on August 12.

Dallas County Judge Ashley Wysocki first extended the order for another 14 days. 

An Alaska surrogate seeking sole custody of the child she gave birth to will still no longer be able to see, hold, transport or make medical decisions for the child after a hearing Tuesday.

Dallas County District Judge Ashley Wysocki extended a temporary restraining order establishing those terms for 14 additional days pending a ruling on who has parental rights over the child — the surrogate or his genetic parents.

McKenna West is asking Wysocki for sole managing conservatorship of the child after his genetic parents, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed, asked her to terminate the pregnancy upon learning the child had a rare congenital heart condition.

West and Gilkar testified during Tuesday's hearing. West said she would not end her pursuit of custody over the baby — even if his parents committed to pursuing the necessary care for him — because she does not trust they will continue attempts to save his life. That's despite writing in a New York Post op-ed last week that a commitment to providing life-saving care for the child was "all it would take to end this."

“I knew that this baby, despite the diagnosis, had a great chance at survival and a great chance at living a long, meaningful life,” West said.

Speaking publicly for the first time, Gilkar, 43, said she and her husband would pursue the additional surgeries needed to stabilize the child's health and denied refusing medical care for him.

“We’ve never wanted anything more than this baby,” Gilkar testified.

If that is the case, why would Ahmed and Gilkar push for an abortion in the first place? Ahmed and Gilkar also filed a parentage claim in Los Angeles Superior Court, allegedly breaching their own surrogate contract. With the Texas litigation and the California one, West's chances of advocating for the life of Baby Gabriel/Rumi were diminishing. With the distinct disconnect between what Ahmed and Gilkar claimed to the press and courts, and their actual actions prior to, and after, Baby Gabriel/Rumi's birth, the concern is obvious: If they take the baby back to California and resume control of his medical decisions, West may have no ability to intervene should they again seek to withhold life-saving treatment.

Baby Gabriel/Rumi remains in critical condition, and West is not even allowed updates on how he is faring. West also does not believe that Gilkar and Ahmed will honor the court petition to keep Baby Gabriel/Rumi alive. So, West's attorneys have filed an emergency petition before the United States Supreme Court. 

As RedState reported, West fled to Texas because Ahmed and Gilkar demanded she abort the preborn baby due to the discovery of a congenital heart defect called hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS). This condition is fatal without treatment, which requires three surgeries that work to correct the heart. Since Baby Gabriel/Rumi's birth, and thanks to the intervention of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who ensured the child received the required care as well as barring his transport from Texas, Baby Gabriel/Rumi has received the first of those life-saving surgeries.

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The petition before SCOTUS requests:

The Court should issue an administrative stay pending disposition of this application and (1) stay the California judgment pending M.W.’s forthcoming petition for certiorari; or (2) treat this application as a petition for certiorari, grant it, and summarily reverse.

The petition presents a more detailed picture of the actions taken by West — and Ahmed and Gilkar. According to the petition, West attempted to convince the couple that with the proper treatment, children diagnosed with HLHS were able to live and thrive. But Ahmed and Gilkar "didn’t want a child with that condition." 

So, within minutes of receiving the diagnosis, N.G. asked whether it was possible to abort him instead. App.J.41‒42. M.W., in contrast, began searching immediately for delivery centers where Baby G. could receive life-saving surgery, identifying Texas as a source of care where she also had family support. App.P.18, 36, 48.

Within days of the HLHS diagnosis, Ahmed and Gilkar demanded West submit to a two-day, late-term abortion in Seattle to end Baby Gabriel/Rumi's life. A demand that West refused and even told her surrogacy agency that if Ahmed and Gilkar still did not want the child, they could cut off all financial obligations to West and that she would raise the child herself or arrange for the child to be adopted. The petition said that instead of contemplating this offer, Ahmed and Gilkar doubled down on their demands for an abortion.

They invoked the contract’s forced abortion clause and repeatedly demanded she terminate Baby G, immediately. Id.5‒6. They even enlisted the attorney representing M.W. at that time in this effort, having her send a demand letter to M.W. that threatened her with exorbitant financial penalties of more than $250,000 should she decline to kill the child. Id.27‒28. That attorney then hired a process server to deliver that letter to her client. Id.27.

This was when West chose to flee to Texas in order to give birth to Baby Gabriel/Rumi. Ahmed and Gilkar breached their own contract by filing action against her in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Unable to obtain the abortion they demanded, the Commissioning Parties pursued the same ends through a different channel. They filed a new parentage action, this time in the Los Angeles Superior Court, in violation of the contract’s forum selection clause. See App.E.5. But they refused to commit to preserving Baby G.’s life. App.B.150‒52. Thus, their claims for parentage focused on the right to make medical decisions on Baby G.’s behalf, while claiming—even up to the day before his birth—that it is impossible to say what those decisions would be.

The Commissioning Parties failed to properly serve M.W. with the petition. App.E.2. They did not personally serve her, and when they attempted substituted service via FedEx, see App.K, the package was delivered to M.W.’s babysitter, who is not a member of her household and was not informed of the package’s contents. Id.; see App.G.142; Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 415.20(b) (listing statutory requirements for substituted service).

On two days’ notice, the Commissioning Parties changed course and applied for an ex parte hearing to establish parentage under California Family Code § 7962, in violation of the parties’ Alaska venue agreement. See App.E.5. 

The petition also revealed that Ahmed and Gilkar are even challenging the Texas order, which requires that Baby Gabriel/Rumi receive life-saving care. For reasons not yet revealed, the Texas Attorney General withdrew from this action. 

At the last hearing in Texas, N.G. testified that she did not regret demanding that M.W. abort the child she now claimed to want to save. App.G.75–76, 158. This testimony is consistent with the Commissioning Parties’ litigation goals: they have sued M.W. for at least $100,000 and are seeking punitive damages for her refusal to abort a viable baby with a treatable heart condition. App.R.79.

Associate Justice Elena Kagan received the emergency petition and will be the one who decides whether the petition will be heard.