A California couple is suing the single mother they hired as a pregnancy surrogate for more than $100,000, after she claimed that they demanded she get an abortion when the baby was diagnosed with a rare heart condition.
McKenna West, a 28-year-old nurse from Alaska, asked a judge to dismiss the claims brought by Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed.
Court documents obtained this month by TMZ show the couple is asking a judge to award them more than $100,000 for allegedly breaching the surrogacy agreement. Gilkar and Ahmed are also seeking unspecified damages for what they described as West’s “malicious, outrageous conduct.”
West argues she is not violating the agreement by calling the baby Gabriel while his biological parents insist on calling him Rumi.
According to West, the agreement allows the couple to “name any child born” under it and requires her to facilitate “having this name selected by [the biological parents] placed on such child’s birth certificate.”
Calling the baby Gabriel — a nickname West said she uses to protect the child’s privacy — does not stop the couple from putting the name they chose on the birth certificate, she said.
The legal battle between West and the California couple began after she refused to have an abortion. West has said the parents demanded she end the pregnancy after the child was diagnosed at 20 weeks with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a condition in which the left side of the heart is severely underdeveloped.
West traveled to Texas, where the state’s attorney general secured a court order stating that the child must receive “medically indicated stabilizing and life-sustaining care” after birth. West gave birth in a Texas hospital on Aug. 12, and the child’s parents are now his legal custodians. The child has undergone a complex heart procedure, TMZ reports. The couple had wanted West to get care at a hospital in Los Angeles.
According to the couple, the surrogacy agreement included a clause that permitted them to opt to abort the child West was carrying. They say they did not try to force West to have an abortion, and that they have suffered emotional damages as a result of her actions. They also claim West initially agreed to have an abortion.
The couple obtained a temporary restraining order the day before the baby was born. The order prevents West from “representing that she is the child’s parent, guardian, or medical decision-maker to anyone.”
The order also restrains West from “[m]aking or attempting to make any medical decision for or on behalf of the child” and from “[e]xercising any possession of the child.”
In a statement to The Texas Tribune earlier this month, West’s attorney, Lincoln Wilson, said his client matched with Gilkar and Ahmed through Connecticut-based Worldwide Surrogacy Specialists LLC.
Wilson said his client’s relationship with the couple deteriorated after they allegedly demanded that West have an abortion following the baby’s diagnosis.
“She described it as fear because 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 said.
Wilson argues that West is the child’s lawful parent because “she gave birth to this child that she carries in Texas,” adding that means “she should control custody as well.”
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
